Teufort Tales
by TalkingTopHat
Summary: A bunch of short stories featuring the RED team and the Invisible Inaudible Immaterial Unsmellable Woman. (See if you can spot her.) No fictional characters were harmed during the making of these stories. Well, not permanently anyway.
1. Chapter 1

**Eureka**

Silence. Medic rubbed his chin as he studied the map and papers assembled in front of him. He glanced up briefly and his eyes met Spy's metallic-grey ones, before flicking back down.

"Well?"

"Let me seenk..."

"You 'ave been seenking for 'alf-an-hour."

"Vell, seenk viz me zen." Spy grunted and reached for his cigarette case. He stopped his hand when he saw Medic's frown. Medic disliked the smell of smoke, and Spy preferred not to anger the man who could or could not decide to let him die a painful death on a daily basis. In fact, Spy suspected that Medic only tolerated his habit most of the time because he was a conveniently close-at-hand pair of smoker's lungs to be experimented on.

Both men pored over the papers.

"Maybe if... no."

"Per'aps – ah, non, zat won't work."

They both jumped as a hideous, clanking cacophony burst into the room, battering their eardrums. Engineer strode down the hallway, half-buried under the huge, misshapen mound of spare parts he was carrying. It looked like the crushed remains of a car crash had sprouted Engineer's legs and gone for a walk. The legs paused, an arm was carefully extracted from under the pile – pieces of metal clattered to the floor around the feet – and Engineer unravelled about ten Egyptian mummies' worth of cotton wool from his ear.

"Hello? Is that you, Spy?"

"No, it's Pinocchio."

"Real funny. Sorry for the noise, I'm just movin' these..."

"I suppose zat dividing one big pile into lots of little piles is not something your brain is equipped for," drawled Spy, casting a disparaging eye over the Eiffel Tower's worth of scrapmetal.

"Sorry, what was that?" Engineer's voice echoed from somewhere behind the mound.

"Nothing."

"Hm. Sorry, ah thought ah heard you say something. What are you doing?" With difficulty, Enginner peered around his load and saw the papers spread on the table.

"Ooooh... Now that's a tricky situation... Interesting. Lemme have a closer look." He dumped his parts in a corner with a screeching crash (Spy clenched his teeth so hard he almost bit his cigarette in half) and joined his team-mates at the table, where he pondered, tapping two fingers to his lip.

"Have you thought of - "

"Yes."

"Or -"

"Ja, done zat."

"Hmmm..."

"Hey, what was that bloody ruckus earlier? Trying to sleep, here."

"Oh, just me, Snipes. Here, come and have a look at this and tell us what you make of it."

"What is it?'

"Come and see." Sniper moved closer to the table, rubbing his red eyes, and blinked blearily at the papers.

"Oh fer God's sake... I'm trying to sleep... Can't you clever blokes figure something out?"

"We're working on it, but nothin' yet." Grumbling, Sniper pulled a chair out from under the table and slumped onto it. Despite himself, though, he too began to gaze keenly at the pieces of paper.

Medic muttered under his breath.

"Dann kann ich... ne, das geht nicht... Aber vielleicht... Spy, if – _Aaah!_ " Medic turned his head and shrieked, shooting out of his chair as if a geyser had erupted under his seat. Engineer jotted some notes down.

"Aaaand, that's five feet. New record, I believe."

"Huddah huh!" Pyro said cheerily as he emerged from the shadows behind Medic. The doctor – having descended to a civilized height again - gulped and patted his own chest.

"Mein Gott, Pyro, don't do zat! Ach, my heart..." Pyro patted Medic's head - the latter gingerly leaned away from him - then he saw the map and cocked his head for a moment. Suddenly he stabbed a gloved finger at a random spot on the paper.

"Huh!"

"No, ve can't do zat." Pyro stabbed his finger at another random spot.

"Huh!" Engineer laughed and slapped a hand down on Pyro's shoulder.

"Naw, haha, that won't work either, buddy. In fact you can prove that mathematically. For instance: take this line here as the hypothenuse to this area, draw this vector, then multiply these tangents by the square root of the perpendicular to..." Engineer's explanation was rudely interrupted. Pyro collapsed into a chair, trembling with relief.

"Watcha doin'?"

"Not now, Scout."

"Hey, I can look if I want an' none of you chuckleheads can stop me." He looked. "Looks boring."

"Piss off then."

"Naw, I decided I wanna sit here." Scout jumped into a chair and crossed his arms, daring them to argue. Spy sighed and massaged his forehead. The assembled mercs stared at the paper. Behind them, heavy footsteps apporached. So to speak.

"What is problem?" Heavy peered down over their heads. His small eyes scanned the papers, by now scattered all over the table, and he frowned.

"Oh. Is hard problem." Heavy pulled a chair out beside Medic and dumped his massive bulk onto it, causing its legs to bend dangerously and creak in a way that Medic didn't at all like. Ignoring this, the Russian leaned over the table, head resting on one huge fist, bottom lip protuding as he thought.

"Is very hard problem... You have been thinking a long time?"

"Ah'm sure we'll get there if we all put our minds to it."

"I am not..." Growled Spy.

"Hm. Haven't you got any information about this spot?" Sniper queried.

"No."

Scout popped some bubblegum into his mouth and tapped his foot, staring vaguely down the corridor while his teammates thought. He was regretting his decision to stay, but he couldn't honourably back out now. His team-mates thought and argued.

"Hm... Yeah, I can see -"

"Won't work."

"Maybe if you - "

"Tried it!"

"Is zis really necessary? I sink asking Scout to use 'is 'ead is dangerous. 'E might explode."

Scout tried to kick Spy under the table. His foot connected, but not with Frenchman.

"Ow!"

"What de -" Scout shrieked and leapt to his feet as if he had just spotted a tarantula on his trouser leg. Demoman emerged from under the table, woozy-eyed.

"Whass gon on?" He slurred. Scout yipped, horrified.

"You were underneath the table this whole time?! Are you frickin' kidding me?" Demoman shakily pulled himself up and stood, swaying gently. His eye focused on the map and papers. Eventually, a thought sluggishly worked its way through to his brain, and he frowned as he laboriously put it into words.

"Ei a-eee-ums..." Demoman frowned and tried to revise his statement. "Aeuaeee..." That wasn't working either. His puzzled team was looking at him with varying degrees of tolerance. Demoman made one last heroic effort. "Tuuuh... Try stickybombszzzzzz..." His voice dissolved into a snore and he slumped onto Spy. The latter shook him off with disgust.

"Atteeeeen-shun!"

"Oh fantastic. I knew we were missing somesing."

"Why are you maggots not on the obstacle course? What is this? ... Aha! I know! Attack from the left!"

"Can't you see the bloody mountain?"

"Attack from the right!"

"Is not possible."

"Attack the middle!"

"Nein! It. Von't. Vork!"

"Go backwards!"

"Now you're just being silly."

"I thought we had established that silly is his default setting."

Engineer had fished his notepad and pencil from his pocket and was drawing geometrical figures. He scratched his hardhat.

"How did you _get_ into this situation?"

"Zis is turning into a monkey cage. Why did you all 'ave to come and look?"

"Attack from behind the enemy! Sun Tzu says you have to!"

"Stickyboooommbsss... *burp*"

"Oh, disgusting."

"All right, but maybe if -"

"Nah, that won't work, see -"

"Problem is too hard. Why do we keep trying to solve it? I am hungry. Maybe, I go, cook dinner?"

"Hang on, you can't just give up now we're all here."

"This is killing me. There has to be a solution!"

"Hudda mph mmmph huh!"

"No, you can't draw on it, get that crayon out of my face."

"Scout, you haven't said anysing. Quit blowing bubbles und help us." Scout was slouching against the backrest, with his arms crossed and foot tapping. He glanced at the map.

"Uh, whatever. Do dat." He jabbed the spot of the map closest to him and went back to staring at the wall, and wondering whether he could trick Miss Pauling into coming to the base.

He noticed that the room had gone silent and looked around.

"Hey, what? I didn't do anything."

Engineer stared at his drawings, then at the spot Scout had jabbed, then back again, unable to close his mouth. Heavy burst out laughing and slapped Scout's back so hard that the Bostonian's head smacked his knees. A look of happy incredulity dawned on Medic's face. He flung his cards aside.

"Yes, yes, yes, zat's it! Sank Gott for morons!" Spy groaned as the doctor gleefully moved his piece across the board.

"I vin!"


	2. Chapter 2

**This base is on fayaaa...**

Spy took a long drag on his cigarette.

"So, Scout, let me get zis straight. You want to win ze lottery."

"Yeah!"

"And you want me to 'elp you."

"Like I said."

"Scout, _'ow ze 'ell_ would I do zat?"

"Listen, I got dis whole thing worked out. So, you infiltrate de lottery, right? An' den you disguise yourself as de lottery guy - "

"Ze lottery guy. I see. Any lottery guy in particular?"

"Oh, ya know, de lottery guy who does lottery stuff. So, disguised as the lottery guy, you run de show, following so far?"

"Just about."

An elephant casually passed through the rec room. An old lady seated on its back waved at Spy. Scout paused and stared.

"Uuhh... Why is...?" Spy sighed.

"It's just my aunt. Please, continue."

"Aaaanyway... So, like I said, you run de show, smile, talk a lot, all dat stuff. And den when it's time to draw de balls, you..." Scout's voice slipped in and out of focus. Spy sighed. He tried to catch his cigarette between two fingers, but noticed with irritation that it had disappeared. He reached inside his suit for his cigarette case and snapped it open, but now all it contained was a mirror. And his case had become plastic, Spy noticed. Typical. Now thoroughly annoyed, he stowed it in his suit again and turned back to face Scout. But Scout wasn't there. In his seat sat a puppy.

"Scout, much as I would like to _not_ hear ze end of your plan, zis is not ze time to turn into a dog. Turn back, now." The puppy barked and ran off. Scout's mother entered the room. Spy smiled and rose to meet her.

"Salut, ma chérie. Ça va?" Scout's mother stared vaguely into the distance. Spy, worried, tried English.

"My dear? Chou-fleur? Do you need 'elp?" Chou-fleur was his pet name for Scout's mother. It actually meant "cauliflower", but she didn't know this. She heard a French word resembling _fleur_ and thought that it was the height of romantic expression. Spy had initially used it as a sort of joke, but the name had stuck.

Scout's mother looked through him.

"Naw, I'm all right, thanks, I'm looking for someone."

"But I love you!"

"Really, I need to be somewhere, I have a meeting planned and dey're serving enchiladas. Bye, now." Scout's mother walked away. Spy stared after her, distraught. An urgent, vague feeling was squeezing his chest, squatting on his heart, he knew that there was something he needed to do, he knew it, but he couldn't work it out but it involved Scout's mother and she was leaving now and he couldn't stop her but she didn't want to see him and he couldn't follow and he wanted to reach her and... And now his phone was beeping. He took it out and flipped it open.

"Allô?"

"Allô? C'est Mlle. Pauling. Vous m'entendez?"

"Parfaitement. C'est quoi le problème? Et depuis quand vous parlez français, vous?"

"You need to get the briefcase!" Yelled the Administrator. "You need to get the briefcase! You need to get the briefcase!" Spy stood up, panicked. The briefcase! Where was the briefcase? It had to be around here somewhere... Suddenly the roof disappeared and an immense flamethrower descended from the sky. A giant BLU Pyro's face loomed above it, peering down at Spy, like a child with a magnifying glass setting ants on fire. Fear burst into Spy's system and he gulped.

"Oh, not again..." BLU Engineer watched from the giant Pyro's shoulder and laughed as Spy tried to run. Tried to. The Frenchman found that he couldn't. He just couldn't build up the momentum. He had to push his foot forwards with every step.

"You'll pay for zis, labourer!" Screeched Spy. "Mediiiiic!" And then he heard the dreaded crackling, that always meant that he had been discovered and was now going to die a very painful and embarrassing death, and would then have to wait for respawn and start all over again from scratch. His heart sank and he screwed his eyes shut, while his hand groped for the briefcase. The warmth increased, worked through his balaclava and burned his skin, and through his closed eyelids he could see the growing intensity of orange light, and he heard a hiss and then a roar as the fire rushed down on him...

Suddenly everything was dark. Something hard struck his chin. He lay disoriented for a moment, heart pumping like it was about to burst straight through his chest, before feeling around him and realising that he was lying on the floor beside his bed. His bedsheets were twisted tightly around him. Frantically he wriggled free, pushed himself up, tripped, got up again, staggered into a wall, scrabbled for a light, found one and switched it. The sight of his bedroom, familiar and ordinary, carefully organized to exude the most refined elegance a room could contain without bursting, had a soothing effect. He made his way to the personal bathroom adjacent to his room. It was the only bedroom to have this, for some reason. Incidentally, it was because of this feature that he had hurriedly claimed the room before anyone else wised up.

He ripped off his balaclava and took a long drink of cold water, splashing it on his face and rubbing it into his hair, which was plastered to his forhead. Just a dream, he repeated to himself as he splashed more water on the nape of his neck. A nightmare. But mon Dieu, what a nightmare. He made a mental note to ask exactly what had been in that "vaccine" Medic had injected him with.

And he really didn't need that right now. The daily number of fights had been doubled for unknown reasons. The effect was telling on both teams: they grew slower by the week, like clockwork toys slowly winding down. This was especially serious for himself, Spy reflected, as he needed his brains to do his job. Unlike most of the assorted idiots he was forced to work with.

Spy sifted through the scattered memories of his dream, growing increasingly horrified. Nonsensical, demented gibberish, the lot. He was almost ashamed of himelf. Still, the smell and sound of fire had been impressively realistic. He could almost smell and hear them now.

Spy paused.

He _could_ smell and hear them now.

Very well in fact.

"Oh, putain..."

"Wake _up_ , idiot!" Spy shook Demoman, who's room was the closest to his. The Scotsman mumbled something about eyes before his head lolled and he went back to sleep. Spy slapped him a couple of times, but the only result was a bubbling snore. Spy stepped back and karate chopped his gut (Demo's, not his own). No response.

Spy noticed an unopened bottle and an idea struck him. He picked it up, held it close to Demo's ear and popped the cork out. Demoman's eyes snapped open and he jumped up like a cat that's been sneezed at.

"Gimme that!"

"No! Listen to me! Zere is a fire in ze rec room and you need to wake Engineer up!"

"But the whiskey?"

"Forget ze whiskey!" Demoman stared at Spy as if the latter had just eaten his infant firstborn.

"Forget the whiskey?!" Spy gnashed his teeth.

"Fine, go wake up ze ozzers and I give you ze whiskey. Now go!" Demo stared warily at him.

"Promise you won't drink it yesself?"

"Yes! Go! Go!" Spurred by this promise, Demoman worked fast. Bodies tumbled out of doors, bumped into each other, cursed, milled around, yelled questions and insults and requests for someone to turn on the bloody light. Soldier had found a trumpet and was blowing a fanfare, for reasons best known to himself. Medic emerged from his lab in a dressing-gown, his hair all stuck to one side and glasses missing, and peered around him.

"Vat's going on?"

"Pyjama party!" Yelled Soldier, delighted.

"No, yer blockhead! Fire!" Shouted Sniper, who had been fetched from his van by Spy. At the other end of the corridor, Scout sniffed.

"Hey, why does it smell like... Like... Uh-oh."

"Where's Pyro? For God's sake don't let him come near here!"

"Can I have me whiskey now?" Asked Demo hopefully. Spy shoved the bottle in his face and moved away.

Engineer, who had grasped the problem quicker than most of his team, wrestled his way to the intercom and obtained silence. The nearest firestation was miles away: ringing them would be of little use. He then enquired as to the number of buckets in the base: exactly one, which was jealously guarded by Soldier, until he was finally persuaded that the bucket was old enough to have a chance to fly with its own wings and be a hero. Even with just the one bucket, it took a ridiculously long time to organize a bucket chain starting from the kitchen tap, which they did, because no one could think of a better solution. And even _then_ , it was only marginally organized: the links in the chain spent a rather large amount of time chasing other links which had wandered off. Meanwhile, the fire steadily grew, eating up the rec room.

Medic, practically blind without his glasses, had to have his hands placed around the bucket by the people next to him, and kept stumbling out of the chain and having to be retrieved, only for him to repeat the performance. He fumbled and sometimes dropped the bucket. Never, and perhaps never again, had Medic been so bitterly cursed by his teammates.

Scout ran back and forth, carrying the empty bucket back to the beginning of the chain, gibbering all the while that it wasn't working and they should leave before they all burned together. Engineer did his best to keep the chain in order. Soldier, who thought that starting a fire in the rec room and then fighting it with his bucket was a terrific idea, and that he would congratulate the person who had thought of it at the first opportunity, shouted orders and spilled the water in his enthusiasm. Heavy had fetched some blankets and was using them to muffle entire sections of the fire, Spy slunk around directing operations while not actually working himself. Sniper left the chain and started to ferry jars from his van to supplement their meager store of recipients. As for Demoman, he was by that time drunk and flat-out refused to believe that there even was a fire, until Heavy grabbed him by the shoulders and forcefully directed his gaze at it. He was then overcome by feelings of righteous anger and solidarity, and while yelling encouragements to his team-mates emptied the contents of his bottle into the fire. The flames leapt higher and crackled happily. The team swiftly press-ganged him into the bucket chain before he could do any more harm.

It was dark, smoky, the heat grew gradually more oppressive despite their efforts. Their eyes stung, their throats burned, sweat poured down their faces, soot clung to their skin, the light of the fire played tricks on their vision. The silhouettes of their teammates, outlined in orange, seemed to flicker past like bats, and grew increasingly harder to distinguish from furniture. Medic could only see a haze of orange. The REDs could barely hear each other over their constant coughing and the roaring of the fire. They had to yell at the top of their voices.

"Vere are you? I can't see, dammit! Vere are you? "

"Here! No, not there, that's a hatstand!"

"It's not working! It's not fuckin' working!"

"Someone get more buckets!"

"Whaaaat?"

"I said we need more buckets!"

"I told you! We have no more buckets!"

"No more jars either!"

"Thank God."

"Oh, shuddup."

"Get pots then! Saucepans! Bowls! Spoons! Anything!"

"I have things!"

"Give 'em here! Not that, you blithering idiot, that's a sieve!"

"Engineer said anything, therefore I will get anything, and just you try and stop me, Baggins! Now! Where did that hatstand go?"

"Come back here, ya bloody moron! ...Gah!"

"Keep goin', lads! We'll give this fire a right kickin' in the bollocks before we're done!"

"Shut up and grab a pot!"

They battled all night. The sun was already up by the time Heavy finally stamped out the last flame.

Grey light poured in from the partially burnt-down wall. The team stood in the smoking remains of their rec room, panting, some of them still holding buckets or jars or various cooking ustensils. Soldier was resolutely clutching a hatstand and glaring at Sniper's exasperated face. Engineer found to his surprise that he was holding a sieve, which explained a lot.

The rec room was half-destroyed. Downy ash covered the floor. Charred, crumbly debris littered the room. Battered and half-burned boxes of Scrabble and Cluedo and chess stuck out of piles of rubble. Most of the furniture was partially blackened and some chairs were lying on their sides, as if a dragon had stuck its head through the door and sneezed. The REDs weren't looking much better: their faces and clothes were smeared with soot and their hair – for those who had any – was greasy and stuck out in random directions. They looked like they had been playing several games of pass-the-parcel with all the parcels replaced with bombs. Scout stared at the wall, his cheek twitching spasmodically. Medic gingerly held up a limp fold of his ruined bathrobe. Spy stared down at his suit in despair.

Medic breathed out slowly, and turned to face what he assumed to be his team-mates, but was actually a sofa.

"Vell. I'm now going to get my glasses, if someone could assist me," he told the sofa, his back firmly turned on his team, "and zen if no one else is, I'm going to showver - " Spy checked his watch, and his blood ran cold.

"No time," he grunted. "Ze battle is in ten minutes."

It was a limp, weary team that gathered in the respawn room that morning. They had hastily pulled on their uniforms, yawning and rubbing their eyes, without having had the time to wash at all. They could still feel the soot and sweat under their clothes. Their eyeballs felt raw, their throats were dry, their heads drooped, their arms dragged like lead, their weapons weighed down on them. Their eyelids dropped the second they stopped paying attention. The only exception was Soldier, who was not going to let a little thing like imminent physical collapse get in his way. In-between drills that no one listened to, he was thoughtfully assessing his hatstand's viability as a weapon.

Engineer was sitting against the wall, half-dozing. Scout was pouring _Bonk!_ down his throat non-stop, but under the sugar-rush he still felt the tiredness. The combination made him cranky and jittery, glaring at everything and everyone with watery red eyes and complaining shrilly that Engineer's hardhat was off-centre. Heavy stared dully at the wall, nodding, Sascha hanging from his arms. Medic, his hair limp and dirty, desperately tried to stay awake by cleaning his glasses, realising too late that he was actually smearing soot on them. At the back, Sniper steadily chugged down mug after mug of coffee. Demoman snored on the floor, happily oblivious to the fact that Scout had decided to repurpose his back as the foundations of a card-castle. Spy massaged his eyes and tried to work out a plan, but his brain felt like the wheels of a tractor stuck in mud: laboriously churning, churning, and getting nowhere. He gave up and started eyeing Sniper's coffee, fingers twitching. Except for Demoman and Soldier, they were all thinking the same thing: wondering how on Earth they would have the energy to run around dodging bullets and rockets when they barely felt up to crawling into bed.

Soldier sneaked up close to Sniper and screeched in his ear.

"GET UP, you spineless bunch of molluscs! The battlefield is waiting!" Sniper blasted out of his seat like a jack-in-the-box, spraying coffee and swearwords. When he realised what had happened he threw Soldier a filthy look and hurried off to get some more coffee before the battle. Medic made a desperate attempt to stand straight.

"Mission begins in two minutes," announced the Administrator crisply. Demoman was listlessly kicked awake, much to Scout's dismay.

"Hey, mind de castle! Mind de – ugh, never mind."

"Where's Pyro?" Mumbled Engineer, rubbing his cheek.

"I didn't see 'im."

"Me neither."

"I saw him!" Barked Soldier. "When we arrived to do battle with the fire with my bucket! I saw him running away from us!"

Engineer stiffened. Spy frowned as he tried to think straight.

"Zen zat means..."

"Vy didn't you say zis before?"

"He told me he just needed a pee and that he'd be right back! And he told me not to tell you that he had gone, or to tell you that he had told me not to tell you what I just told you because – oh." Soldier frowned beneath his helmet, trying to work out what he had just said. The implication of what he had just revealed slowly worked its way through his teammates' brains.

Just as this moment Pyro slunk fearfully into the room, keeping to the wall. All eyes turned to him, and an icy silence greeted his arrival.

Engineer grinned widely, exposing all his teeth.

"Why, hello there. Tell me - what were you doing when the fire started?" Pyro shook his head and held his hands up innocently, mumbling something, while simultaneously trying to hide his flamethrower behind his back.

There was a long pause, and he started to quake under the concentrated beams of animosity the other REDs were sending him. Engineer spoke again.

"You didn't... start it, didja?"

"Nononono," giggled Pyro, still trembling like jelly in an earthquake.

The team stared at him. The thought that the cause of their tiredness was right in front of them, and that its face would soon be available for use as an anti-bullet protection, part-time punchbag, spare hammer and whatever other use they could dream up for it, cheered them all up greatly. The weariness vanished from their limbs, they felt fresh and ready for a little therapeutical violence.

"Mission begins in ten seconds."

Heavy hefted his minigun, grinning. Scout jiggled his bat in his hand and bent his knees, ready to streak off like a greyhound released from its leash the second the door opened. Sniper pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned sideways, lifting his rifle. Soldier lifted his rocket launcher to its familiar place on his shoulder, while Demoman loaded his grenade launcher with practised ease, snapped it shut, and pointed it at the door, leering. Spy brushed his suit and flicked his cigarette case open, his smug look firmly back in place. Beside him, Engineer rolled his sleeves up and thumped his wrench into his palm, hardhat low over his eyes, grinning as he contemplated the fight ahead. Medic took his place behind Heavy and stamped his heels smartly. Soon the red swirl from his medigun was enveloping each team-mate in turn. With one exception.

"Start fighting now!"

The distant battle cries of the BLUs could be heard, followed by explosions and the rattle of guns.

As one, the RED team turned to look at the trembling pyromaniac.

"Pyro. Why don't you go first?"


	3. Chapter 3

**The Temper-est**

Their thoughts ran round in loops. How? Just how? They'd ruled the battlefield all afternoon, mowing down any BLU who as much as poked a finger out of its base, only to be swept away just like that in the last three seconds. The last three seconds! How?

The RED team headed back to base, dazed. There were so many things that could have been different. If Sniper had just checked behind him and maybe thrown a jar of piss or two before scoping in. If Scout had only known there was a Heavy waiting at the other end of that pipe. If Engineer had not distractedly stepped into the precise spot that BLU Soldier landed in half a second later. If Spy had noticed a little earlier that BLU Pyro was already occupying the otherwise excellent hiding-place he ducked into. If Demoman had remained just sober enough to detonate his sticky bombs before he was turned into a bullet sandwich. If Pyro had not got distracted by a nearby butterfly, leaving Soldier and Medic to burn together. If Soldier hadn't decided that a wholesale slaughter was the perfect time for drill routines. If Heavy hadn't run out of ammo at precisely the wrong moment and shuffled away awkwardly, like he'd just had an accident in his trousers, to look for some. If Medic had deployed his Übercharge just one second later...

Slowly, the facts sank into the REDs' brains. Slowly, they left the denial phase and most of them shot straight into the anger phase without a backwards glance, joining Sodier who had been there for a solid half-hour. He was rambling along happily.

"That was the worst, most disgraceful performance in battle I have ever had the pain to witness! Men, I have seen girl scouts put up a better fight than this! I should have kicked all your sorry asses around until they went up your stomachs, I should have - "

"Medic, why dincha heal me? I was right dere! Right fuckin' dere!"

"I vas healing ze Heavy. It's your own fault, you vouldn't have needed ze healing if you hadn't gone running off by yourself like zat, dummkopf."

"Answer me this, maggots - "

"All ya do is heal the bloody Heavy. What about the rest of us?"

"Oh, so it's my fault, is it? I should go traipsing over rooftops to find you every time you haff a boo-boo? Zere are nine off you alvays screaming "Medic!" "Medic!" - "

"Hey fellas, why don't we all calm down and - "

"And only one of me, verdammt! Pyro! Vhere vere you vhen Engineer's sentry vas sapped? Huh?"

"Mmmph-mmph mph mph-phm!"

"Don't worry buddy, it's all right."

"Oh yeah, sure mate. It was fine that he was chasing a _butterfly_ while we all got slaughtered!"

"Well, what were you doing to help then?"

"I was gettin' stabbed thanks to that sentry of yours not working!"

"Loafing around the battlefield like sorry excuses for..."

"Well thass nae use either is it!"

"Neither were your stickybombs, they did absolutely bugger all!"

"That last part could very well apply to you, Bushman."

"Shut it, Spook."

"Yeah, screw you, Spy!" Yapped Scout happily. Spy coolly breathed out a funnel of smoke.

"Can't seenk of somesing intelligent to answeur? Try. You might get zere in a couple of decades. Per'aps one day you will even learn to read."

"I said shut it!"

"MEN! _How_ can you - "

"Shut yer gob, Soldier!"

"Why you - "

"If ye'd paid more attention to the fight insteada lecturin' us you mighta shot the bloke who killed me, an' I would've detonated me stickybombs, an' we wouldnae have lost!"

"Come on, fellas, let's be reasonable..."

"I'll have you court-marshalled for this, Englishman!"

"Englishman?! Ya poncey bastard! Bring it on!"

This particular section of the argument dissolved into a fistfight and the others moved on, not noticing that there were now eight of them. Sniper readjusted his hat irritably.

"Wouldn't hurt to come and find me once in a while, Doc! I've saved your life five times today - "

"Doctor and Heavy and Sascha make good team. Doctor and Sniper, is not so good."

"Oi!"

"Now now, we all got our strengths and we're all - "

"Yo Engie, remember I told you we needed a frickin' sentry next to the door! Why dincha listen? Why? Why?"

"Now hang on just a dang second - "

"F'you'd all listend'a me dey'd be sending our victory bonuses right now."

"I know mah job, boy, why don't you focus on yours!"

"Are you kiddin' ? I'm the only one who did _any_ thing right today."

"Heh! Bien sur. And we are to suppose zat jumping straight up a Pyro's flame-sroeur was all part of your cleveur plan."

"Get stuffed, Spy, dat guy got lucky."

"So ze other BLUs were also lucky when zey stabbed, shot, punched and blew you up as soon as you put one foot out of respawn? Impressive. I suggest zey buy a lottery ticket."

"You gotta problem? Huh? 'Cos I'd keep walkin' if I was you."

"I've got a problem, Spy, what the hell were you doing when the BLU Heavy turned up? Hiding, were ya?"

"Stay out of zis, Bushman."

"Ya talk real big, Snake, for a man in such a prissy suit."

"Let go of my suit, I didn't see you wash your 'ands today."

"I don't think so."

"You 'ave ten seconds to remove your filthy 'ands before I cut zem off."

"Careful, Spy, wouldn't want to stain your cute lil' gloves."

Sniper and Spy stopped and glared at each other, Sniper's fist still clenched tightly on Spy's collar. Spy's eyes flashed coldly. He slipped his butterfly knife out of his pocket, twirled it around a couple of times, then fitted it together with a flick of his wrist and held it against Sniper's belly. The two remained motionless, and the group left them behind, its number now reduced to six.

"So, Doc, why dincha heal me?" Medic roared with frustration.

"Gnaaaaaah! I already told you!"

"Oh yeah, Heavy. As usual." Scout grinned and began chanting. "Medic and Heavy, sittin' up a tree. K-I-S-S – "

"Aw come on Scout, now that's just childish..."

Medic flushed and sputtered.

"You – zis is – ve do not – nein!"

"Leetle baby-man close mouth. Now. I will say this once."

"Heavy und I do not go up trees togezzer!"

"You sure?" Argued Scout hotly. " 'Cos I didn't see ya doin' any healing today!"

"Scout..." Said Engineer warningly.

"Oh yes? Vell I von't let you anyvere near my medigun next time, if zat's the appreciation I get!"

"Whatever man, you don't anyway."

"I DON'T ANYVAY?! I saved you from zose stickybombs only sree hours ago!" Engineer was tempted to make a pun concerning sticky deaths, but he decided that maybe it wasn't the right atmosphere for that. He would save it for another time.

"Now now, calm down, doc - "

"No, I VILL NOT CALM DOWN!"

"Yeah, I never get the Übers!"

"Neither do I, kid, that ain't our - "

"I want a frickin' turn! Why should the Heavy get dem all de time and I don't get nuthin'?"

Medic was beside himself, clutching his hair and ranting.

"Shut up! I run after you _all ze time_ , patching up _all_ your little scratches, getting stabbed and sniped _effery ozzer step_ – Vat if I was to leave you next time and just vatch, hm? I could dissect ze bodies vile I vait! _Zen_ let's see you vin ze battle!"

"Dude, dat would not make one bit of difference!"

"Zat's it! Zat is it!"

"Scout! You know Medic does a good job!"

BAM!

"ENOUGH! I am tired by little baby shouting! Scout, you have problem with Medic, you have problem with me. You want to say it to my face, so we fight like big men?" Scout almost hopped with excitement like a small dog. He began to go through what Spy like to call his march-of-ze-intimidating-penguin routine.

"Oh yeah, you wanna take me on? I wouldn't take me on bruddah, 'cos what I got here is six feet'a pure bad-news-for-you! So come on, come at me, what you got? What you g-" Heavy simply grabbed Scout by the collar and bonked his clenched fist onto his head like a whack-a-mole hammer. Scout, cross-eyed, reeled and tottered back and forth, made a valiant attempt to not fall on his behind, and failed miserably.

Medic stared for a second, nostrils flared, insensed. There seemed to be a real risk that he would spontaneously self-destruct. He whipped around to Heavy and yelled.

"And you! Zat vas _my_ argument! You sink I can't handle my own fights? You sink poor little Medic might burst into tears if anyvun so much as farts in his general direction? Alvays hanging around me like a big dopey dog! Vat must I do to make you mind your own business for ten seconds!" His speech dissolved into unintelligible ravings, and he started to beat Heavy's chest with his fists. Heavy looked down, bemused and slightly worried, before staring questioningly at Engineer. The Texan shrugged helplessly. He wondered if he should step in. Oh, screw it, he had tried. If everyone was so bent on fighting then they could get it out of their system without him, thanks very much. He crouched, took a can of _Bonk!_ from Scout's bag and tipped it down the young man's gullet. Scout immediately sprang to his feet like a man who has unwittingly sat down on an electric eel. He frowned for a moment, remembered where he had got up to and resumed without preamble. Engineer rubbed his brow tiredly.

"- ot? Oh yeah, that's how you wanna play it is it? You got no idea _gargl_ -"

Engineer caught him by the back of his collar and dragged him along with him, back towards the base. Pyro skipped along behind them.

"Engie! What da hell, man?"

"Come on, it ain't worth it."

They were very near the base now, only a few yards between them and the large metal door. Engineer stopped to point out a small red camera nestled in high up in the corner.

"See that? Ah spent two weeks on that lil' number. Did you know there was a blind spot on our cameras?"

"Uh-huh." Scout wandered around, kicked a can, stared at the wall. Heavy's blow had left him with a crushing headache, and the world seemed to sway around him. Would Engie hurry up and open the door already.

"Well, I decided to fix it. At first I thought I'd just have to move the camera, but then I found that – well, heh, let's just say that that wouldn't work. So I made a whole new camera, smaller and lighter. Scroungin' up the right parts took me four days."

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"After it was successfully constructed I had to rearrange all the wires, which meant scraping away part of the wall and then fixin' it again – then link the wires up with the camera, set the camera up on the wall – then there was a glitch, and it took me half a week to figure out. Turns out a baby snake had crawled inside a hole in the wall, bitten through the wires and died. Poor little devil. I had to take it apart and clean it all, acquire new wires, then put it back together again. Don't even git me started on all the calculations."

Scout, trying to distract himself from his nausea, lifted his bat and took a couple of practise swings at imaginary baseball balls. Hang on, he had one, didn't he? He dug inside his pocket. Yep, got one.

"All in all, a lot of work, but now it's up and running. We'll see anyone who comes calling. Worth it, ah reckon."

Scout threw the ball in the air, swung, and missed. Almost. The ball glanced off the side of the bat and crashed straight into the newly-installed camera.

The camera crackled, fizzled, then the front half broke off and fell. It smashed on the cement, little pieces skittering off everywhere.

A weighty silence descended upon the scene.

Scout felt like his innards were shrivelling up. He flushed, lowered his bat, shuffled his feet. Then he cleared his throat.

"Hey, uh... C'mon, can't be dat bad, can it? I'll – I'll help you fix it, if, er, maybe..."

Engineer stared at the shattered remains of the camera. Slowly, his gaze transferred to Scout. Slowly, he opened his mouth and sucked in as much air as he could hold. Then he let it all out in a bellowing tirade which submerged Scout's feeble protests completely and made his head feel like it had been clapped between two cymbals.

Pyro wandered calmly through the shouting, opened the door and ambled in. The man with the yellow hat was making quite a lot of noise, so he closed it behind he as well. He made himself a little plateful of biscuits and some tea, and carried them both to the sofa in the rec room. After flicking through several channels, he found a nature program about koalas and settled down to watch. But for the TV, the base was absolutely silent.

Pyro sighed.

Peace and quiet at last.

Epilogue

It had been several days since the REDs' memorable defeat, and they had since got their revenge with a string of victories, stamping the BLUs into the dust and chasing back to their base gunning them down with sadistic joy. Whoever said that revenge was a dish best eaten cold had obviously never been handed a lethal weapon, pointed at their enemy and told to go nuts.

Anyway. After their argument, the team returned to the base in ones and twos. Engineer was first, stomping into his workshop and slamming the door behind him. Scout had followed sheepishly. He had grunted at Pyro and scuttled to his room. Or tried to, at least. He crashed into the wall a couple of times before managing to correctly gauge the position of the door and escape.

Soldier and Demoman were next. They entered the base with bruised, puffy faces, each with his arm slung around the other's shoulder, staggering back and forth like a dizzy crab and singing at the top of their voices. Both drunk. Soldier was bellowing an American marching tune and Demo a Scottish ballad, his voice reaching levels of gratingness that only someone playing a badly-tuned violin for the very first time can match. Not exactly pleasant at the best of times, even taken individually, so this mismatched duet was an atrocious offense to the ear and Pyro soon retreated to his room. The pair stayed up for a few minutes telling each other what good friends they were until Demoman slithered to the floor and started snoring. Soldier soon joined him.

Medic had arrived not long afterwards. His usually immaculate hair was waving all over the place, and his glasses were dangling off one ear. His pale face was covered in red blotches. He glanced at the pair on the floor, sniffed and stalked off to the lab. Heavy was following timidly, keeping a safe distance between himself and his irate friend.

Spy and Sniper were nowhere to be found, until they were discovered locked in the respawn room the next morning in singularly foul moods. Once released, they slunk off to their respective quarters with a parting evil look at each other. They remained uneasy for the next couple of days, as killing someone on your own team was forbidden. So far, the Administrator had held an ominous silence.

All in all: one broken camera (currently undergoing repair), a few scratches and bruises (easily fixed), two thumping hangovers (also easily fixed), and a concussion (whose owner shuffled to Medic's lab only to find it locked and its occupant mysteriously deaf.)


	4. Chapter 4

**By the way, thanks to Fattey Waffey for his kind review. It made my day :-)**

 **Pretty Mercs (walkin' down the street)**

Sniper parked his van and cut off the engine.

"Righ', he were are. We'll meet here again in two hours."

"Yeah, yeah." Scout cannonballed out of the van almost before it had stopped moving, leaving the doors swinging. Sniper yelled after him.

"Oi! What did I say about the doors!" Scout acknowledged the angry shout with a cheerily raised middle finger and ran off. Engineer and Heavy jumped down at a more leisurely pace – the van rocked as Heavy stepped out of it – and strolled towards the town, chatting. Spy came out next and padded off in a different direction. Sniper climbed out last, muttering sourly, and tenderly closed and locked the doors before following.

Scout raced ahead, his bag bouncing on his hip. He dashed down the main street without slowing once, leaving scandalised stares in his wake. He dodged a teenager on a skateboard, shot sideways through two pushchairs, skipped to avoid an old lady, ran along a bench and jumped over a surprised child. He reached a corner, grabbed a lampost and swung into an alleyway.

" _Glk!_ " A hand had snapped out and grabbed his collar, making Scout's body snap back like an elastic band. The young man was brought to an abrupt halt, choking and rubbing his neck. Beside him, Spy uncloaked.

"Scout, I would like to speak to you for a moment." The Frenchman tugged on his silk glove, smoothing out the folds that catching Scout had created. He looked, as always when he had to talk to Scout, like someone was holding a handful of dung under his nose. Scout sputtered indignantly, red in the face. He wanted to shout something along the lines of "fuck off", but it felt like someone had karate chopped him in the windpipe and he couldn't do much more than squeak.

"As I know zat your head is about as full and busy as ze average whistle - " Scout raised a finger indignantly, but Spy cut him off, "I came to give you – zis." The Frenchman reached inside his suit and pulled out a crystal-clear perfume bottle. It shaped like a cut diamond, and its front bore the inscription _"Divine: Eau de Déesse"_ in lacy black letters. Its shiny black top was adorned with a pink silk ribbon.

Spy held it out to Scout.

Scout stared at the monstrosity, bug-eyed. Spy shook it impatiently.

"Come on, I don't have all day. And please don't break it, it cost me a small fortune."

Sheer shock drove Scout to regain his power of speech. He laughed weakly.

"Ha. Ha, ha ha... Aha. Good one, Spy, I almost thought you were serious for a seeeec... Oh wait you are serious." Spy raised a sardonic eyebrow. Scout backed away.

"Uuuuh... Hey, Spy buddy, you feelin' all right?" Spy rolled his eyes.

"Yes, sanks for asking. Take it, I have urgent matters to attend to. Go on."

"What, am I missing something? Why de hell would I want dat?" Spy sniffed.

"I would seenk it's obvious. Take it and zen remove your offensive smell from my vicinity."

"No way. I ain't goin' near dat thing." A pause. They stood, locked in a stubborness contest. Spy cocked his head.

"Take it."

"I ain't taking it."

"Yes you are, because I paid for zis."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yes. You. Are." Spy shoved the bottle towards Scout, who pushed it away and leapt aside.

"I said no! I don't want it! It's... _girly_! You keep it, and squirt it on your fancy French ass, 'cos I am so outta here."

Scout galloped away as fast as he could with a haunted look in his eyes. Spy stared after him scornfully. He made a clipped sigh, shook his head and stowed the perfume in his inside pocket again. The idiot would no doubt be back for it later, when his brain finally caught up with his mouth.

Scout resumed his walk – or rather, run – through town. He spared only a fleeting thought and a muttered insult to his encounter with Spy, then put it out of his mind. Occasionally he would dash into a shop like someone who's been waiting for the loo for three hours, rummage through the shelves, then leave as quickly as he had come, but mostly he raced through streets repurposing benches and lamp-posts as climbing frames and ramps. He finished what was in his humble opinion a particularly cool and epic parkour session and came to a stop to catch his breath, pleased with himself. _Ain't nobody got nuthin' on me_. He was about to walk nonchalantly off when he noticed two girls watching him. Even better. He opened his mouth to beam them a winning smile, finely calculated to show off his looks while exuding maximum awesomeness, but then a fly flew down his throat and he gagged.

Scout staggered into a musty-smelling antiques shop, retching. He leaned on a statue and shuddered. He had coughed for five minutes straight, had got absolutely nowhere with the girls, and even worse, the stupid fly hadn't come out. He didn't want to think about what had happened to it.

"Water," he wheezed and stumbled into what felt like the trunk of an oak tree. He jumped as it shouted at him.

"Scout! What are you doing - "

"Oh, Heavy. Hey dere. Mister, got any water?" His voice felt squeaky. The shopkeeper barely glanced at him.

"One moment, sir." Scout's opened his mouth in outrage. He was about to shout that this was an emergency when he noticed what he and Heavy were looking at: a large kitchen knife with a furry handle.

"Authentic, sir. Real wolf-fur, straight from Medieval Britain," the shopkeeper was telling him.

"Heavy, why de _heck_ would you want to buy dat? Dat hideous... thing!" Heavy ignored him. He had his massive arms crossed and was frowning thoughtfully. Then he nodded.

"Yes! She will like this." Heavy grinned as he paid for the knife and put it in a plastic bag.

"Uh, what kind of a chick would like... " Scout stopped in his tracks. He stared at his teammate.

"Hey, wait a sec. She?Heavy, you got a... You... _You?_ " Heavy didn't answer. Scout stared up at him with an open mouth, fly all but forgotten, before shaking himself.

"No way. I gotta tell the others." Scout sprinted out of the shop just as the shopkeeper approached him with a glass of water.

He'd heard Engineer say he was going to the china shop, hadn't he? Scout scanned the line of buildings to his right as he ran and spotted the bright window. He swerved right and burst through the doors.

"Engie!"

"Excuse me, sir - "

"Sorry no time. My friend over dere can listen and he'll tell me later," said Scout as he pointed out a complete stranger in the street. The shopkeeper marched towards the poor bystander and Scout legged it. Running through the shop, he soon spotted Engineer's distinctive yellow hat.

"Yo! Hardhat! Engie, Heavy's got a – Engie?" The Texan was pondering over a rack of... flowery teapots.

"Hm. Oh hello, Scout. Now... Whaddya reckon, pink or blue?"

"Uuhh... What – okay, it don't matter. Listen, I got somethin' to tell ya. So, y'see, I was runnin' through town. Like, dodging dis old lady and all dose other people, and some kids tried to race me and like dey don't got no chance, ya know, so I run along the side and den cut across like right in front of 'em, you should've seen deir faces. It was friggin' sweet, especially when I jumped over that bench – are you even listenin'?"

"Sorry, I'm busy right now. Could you, maybe, hurry it up a bit?"

"All right, fine, but man are you missin' out, I mean dere were dose girls afterwards – "

"Scout."

"Okay, okay. Right. So, listen, I saw Heavy in some ugly shop earlier and – _He. Has. A frickin' girlfriend!_ " Scout hissed this in the horrified tone that, in a film, would warrant a dramatic _tun-tun-tuuun!_ noise. He waited confidently for Engineer to gape and stagger.

"Uh-huh. Maybe I should go for purple..."

"Wait, you're not even a little surprised? Heavy? Our Heavy, seeing a chick? How can you be so cool about it? Heavy, has, a girlfriend!" Scout whined.

"Well, lots of people do. On reflexion, I think ah'll stick to pink."

"And you, with your teapots! You know what, I give up. I'm goin' to find one sane person on dis team."

"You do that."

Scout speedwalked out of the shop, brushing off the indignant shopkeeper and the indignant bystander who had by that time worked things out, and bumped into Sniper, who dropped what he was carrying.

"Watch it!"

"Aw sorry – listen, I found out somethin' -" Scout stopped when he noticed that what Sniper, red-faced and embarrassed, was picking up off the pavement was a pretty necklace.

Medic and Demoman were seated at the coffee table, in the base. They had refused Sniper's offer to drive everyone to town, for different reasons. Demoman because he wanted to write a letter to his mother, a painstaking and time-consuming business where Demoman was concerned, and Medic because he had just acquired a fascinating new book entitled "Make Your Own Frankenstein in Ten Easy Steps", although he was starting to find it a bit standard and pedantic.

Demoman frowned and chewed his pencil.

"Say, would you spell "anticlimactically" with a c, or a k, or both?" Medic sighed. Here he was, a German, teaching a Scot how to spell.

"Only "c"s."

"Thanks." A pause. Demoman's pencil scratched on the paper. Medic eyed the flowers and the box of chocolates on the table in front of Demo. Dull, he thought.

"Is zat vat you are giving yours?"

"Yes. What did you get?"

"An umbrella-stand," said the doctor brightly.

"Oh," said Demo, surprised. For Medic, who had been known to present Sniper with a collection of diseased fingernails for his birthday, this was suspiciously ordinary. "Where'd you get it?"

"Vell, I had a few spare severed legs hanging around, and it was nice to be rid of one of zem. Scooping out ze marrow of ze femur vas fun too. I even invented a new kind of scoop, designed specifically for zis purpose." Demoman stared.

"Ye can't be serious." Medic looked genuinely baffled and Demo was forced to clarify. "You'll be lucky if she doesn't faint," he objected.

"Nonsense, she loves modern art."

"Bloody hell, doc..." Demoman shook his head and went back to his letter. A few minutes later, just as he triumphantly remembered how to spell "manoeuvre", they heard the van pulling up in front of the base. The doors slid open and Scout, Heavy, Engineer, Spy and Sniper walked in.

Scout took one look at the flowers and chocolates in Demo's hands and ran screaming to his room.

There was a pause.

"Should we tell him it's Mother's Day soon?"

Another pause. Then:

"Nah."


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks for the reviews! This chapter I wrote mainly to practise description. And so as to not get throttled in the night by angry wildlife experts, I would like to say that I have no idea what species of animal live in deserts, so any fact which turns out to be true does so purely by accident.**

 **My team and other animals**

The sun was just peeking over the horizon, its already white-hot light bursting across the sky. Heat seeped into the desert again after the cool night. The sandy muzzle of a coyote poked out from behind a pile of rocks. Since nothing bad happened to it, the rest of the scruffy-furred animal cautiously crept into view, daintily picking its way across the sand, sticking close to the cover of the boulders. It sniffed the air, nose twitching, then snuffled around on the ground. Just to make sure it looked around it, its large ears pricked. Apparently it didn't detect any signs of danger, because it ventured into open ground and began digging for food in the sand, scrabbling with its long slim paws, though its body remained tense and wired up to sprint away at a moment's notice. It found a beetle, snapped it up, there were crunching sounds as the coyote chewed, then it tilted its head upwards and swallowed the unfortunate ex-insect. It quickly glanced around it once more before resuming its search.

The scope followed its progress. Through it, the coyote was slightly distorted and circled with blackness. The scope moved upwards slightly so that the centre of the circle was precisely on the coyote's head. A finger tapped the trigger thoughtfully.

Having satisfied its hunger, the coyote trotted back to cover and slunk into a cactus patch. Sniper let it go, since it wasn't doing any harm and he already had about a dozen coyote pelts in his parents' house.

Seated on the roof of the RED base, the Australian marksman put his rifle down and stretched. He took a sip from his #1 Sniper mug, leaning back to scan the land again. He liked these solitary mornings in which he got up early to watch the sun rise. No obnoxious teenagers yapping your ears off about every miniscule detail of their uninteresting lives. No loud alcoholics alternately burping in your face and blowing stuff up all over the place. (Bloody nuisance. It was racking his nerves.) No rocket-happy nutcases always badgering you to do twenty pushups. No mad doctors chasing your around, trying to convince you to let them stick a needle of mystery liquid into you. No self-satisfied bastards breathing smoke in your face. No monstrosities threatening to set your shirt on fire.

No. Just him, and no one else in sight. He could relax, drink in the sunshine, take potshots at the local wildlife. With the flat, seemingly empty desert stretching from horizon to horizon, he could almost believe that he was the only person on Earth.

He liked this place. It reminded him of the outback he came from, albeit rather lacking in exciting wildlife. Well, that wasn't exactly fair. There _were_ animals, just (for Sniper) not very impressive ones: packs of coyotes whose cries haunted the night, little fennec foxes with their outsized ears, lizards scuttling over rocks, eagles sliding over the air far above with their fingertips outstretched like fingers, combing the land for the gerbils that skimmed over the desert kicking up little puffs of sand. Tiny, polished, caramel-tinted scorpions crouched in their burrows during the day, and the occasional cougar padded through on silent paws. And then there were the snakes. Tricky blighters. One single bite, even the tiniest scratch of their fangs, and you're in trouble. Thanks to their patterned scales, flecked with yellow and brown, they were practically indistinguishable from their environment. If you made a lot of noise they left before you arrived, which meant that most of the REDs were pretty safe, but Sniper didn't like making noise. Unless he was hollering obscenities at the BLUs at the top of his voice, of course, but that was different. Outisde battles, he had to keep a sharp eye out, and would spring backwards whenever he heard a rattle by his feet. A habit that Scout had swiftly found he could exploit to get his kicks. The little shit.

And then of course, there was his team, who were hazards in their own rights. But Sniper didn't want to think about them. He'd have plenty of time for that later.

He shifted his position slightly so that the sunlight wouldn't bounce off his glasses and warn potential visitors or game, pulled the brim of his hat down to better shield his eyes, and resumed his observation. The sky was a light, pure blue, smooth and completely cloudless. In the distance, where it met the ground, it was rimmed with white. To Sniper's right, the sun was blazing, thrusting blinding white light out around it. Underneath, the sun-drenched desert continued in all directions, pock-marked by little dips and waves in the sand. Here and there dusty cacti punctuated the land, and large sharp-edged rocks reared upwards, casting long, deep shadows that rippled along the contours of the ground. In the distance, Sniper could see a breath of wind scouring the desert, lifting curtains of sand that drifted before lying down to rest again, though no sound reached his ears. The desert was sliced in half by a winding road, its cement cracked and sizzling hot. Literally. Engineer had once fried bacon on it when their hob was broken. Heat waves radiated up from the cement, making the air above simmer.

It was an arid, dusty, monotonous place, and Sniper loved it. But what he enjoyed the most was the silence. The utter stillness of the air. The emptiness in his ears. It seemed as if the desert was a gigantic disk, and the sky that spanned above it a bowl placed on the disk, and that Sniper was its sole occupant. Enclosed in his own globe, floating in space, untouched by time. His heartbeats were slow and his breathing deep and regular. And there was a certain peacefullness, deeper than anything else he knew, that was stealing into his heart, and awe at the immense universe, infinitely bigger than anything the human mind can encompass, up there behind the sky, directly above him with nothing in between, and there dawned in his soul the incredible sense that -

 _Bish! Bish! Bish!_

"Geeet UP, you pack of sleeping uglies! WAKEY-WAKEY! If you think that you are having a lie-in today, then you will realize that your are WRONG, and the realization will come ON THE END OF MY FOOT!" The sound of Soldier bellowing as he tramped up and down the corridor smashing two dustbin lids together floated up to Sniper, followed by banging on doors, muffled thumps, crashes as people fell out of beds, groans, shouted insults, threats, swear words and blasphemy in a kaleidoscope of accents and languages, shattering Sniper's perfect moment and stomping all over the remains. Arguments were started, vicious complaints voiced, doors slammed, feet thundered up and down stairs, the grill hissed into life and plates clattered.

Sniper huffed. Oh well. He gulped down the rest of his coffee, got up, strapped his rifle to his back and began to climb down.

Time to start the day.

 **As always, criticism is welcome. The next chapter will hopefully be a bit more action-y.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry for the long wait! But here it is. Hope you enjoy.**

 **Saving Private Haircut Pt. 1**

Sunday. Their day off. The air was thick and warm, the sun shone lazily on the desert, crickets grated away in the background. It was the kind of weather that makes you feel as though your head was filled with warm sludge. The REDs slouched around in the rec room, except for Soldier who for the sake of a quiet morning had been drugged and stuffed inside a store cupboard.

Spy and Medic were engaged in a game of chess, both deep in concentration, frowning at the board as if to move the pieces by the sheer force of eyebrow contraction. Spy occasionally tugged at his balaclava – it wasn't suited for this weather – but he didn't remove it. Sniper dozed against the window, his hat pulled down over his eyes. Beside him, Engineer strummed very gently on his guitar. Heavy was sitting on the sofa, which due to his weight was almost folded in half, watching the news. At the table, Demoman was laboriously composing a letter to his mother. Scout was sketching on a piece of scrap paper. His pen scritched and scratched, and he dreamily half-smiled as he lovingly traced the brain matter spurting out of cartoon Spy's head. All kept a wary half-eye on Pyro, who was lurking in the corner, silently playing with an inflatable unicorn in one hand and a lighter in the other.

"Attention." The Administrator's icy tones reverberated through the base. Everyone paused and gazed upwards.

"Sniper and Spy. Report to the intelligence room immmediately." Dread bloomed in Spy and Sniper's guts.

They glanced at each other, gauging the other's reaction. Spy did his best to appear unruffled. He rose smoothly to his feet and crossed the room, with only a regretful glance at the chess board. Better get it over with, thought Sniper. He stood up, readjusted his hat and followed the Spy to the door.

"Good luck," called Engineer. Sniper nodded to him.

"See ya later." Demo grinned.

"Or not."

"Very funny." They left the room.

Medic sighed at the pieces and thought about the strategy he hadn't been able to complete. Oh well. He started to put the pieces away, idly wondering whether he might be allowed to perform one of his own special post-mortems on Spy and Sniper should the opportunity arise. He rolled the king between his thumb and forefinger, and then regretfully decided that no, probably not.

He put the box back in the cupboard and began to make his way to his lab, his mind already excitedly planning ahead. He could start work on that gender-reassignment pill he'd been thinking out. Or that voice-break reversal treatment – he had always liked the pure sound of a soprano, so it would be nice to hear it on a daily basis. It would have to be "accidentally" administrated, of course. Then he had to feed the doves. And there was that bread formula to test, the one which he'd made from cells extracted from the bread monster Soldier had created a couple of months earlier. Toast had been treated with extreme caution for weeks after that, he remembered. It was removed form the toaster with three-foot tongs from behind cover with a loaded shotgun in the other hand. Breakfast had been a nightmare. But anyway. He also needed to find a test subject to restock his specimen cabinet, and then he had to...

Medic grinned. So much to do, so little time.

Sniper and Spy's footsteps echoed loudly on the metal floor. They walked side by side, not speaking, thinking about what lay ahead. The door to the intelligence room seemed to gleam evilly at them as they approached it. Sniper shivered. If that door was a man, he thought, it would be the kind that wears an expensive suit and spends all its time in half-darkened room full of computers while saying things like "I was expecting you" with a polished British accent. Then he rolled his eyes at himself.

Spy opened it and bowed mockingly.

"Please, after you."

"I'm not turning my back on you." Spy raised his eyebrows.

"Do you really seenk I would kill you again? Now?" Sniper crossed his arms and didn't budge. Spy groaned.

"Oh, fine." He went through first and Sniper followed.

The cold metal chairs shone under the harsh white lights. There was a file in the middle of the table. They cautiously took a seat and waited. The smoke from Spy's cigarette wound upwards in a slim grey thread and pooled just beneath the ceiling. Sniper deliberately turned away and held his nose, but this only provoked the other man into blowing a smoke ring at him. Sniper opened his mouth hotly just as the speakers whined into life.

"Gentlemen," said the Administrator crisply. Spy nodded in the vague direction of the camera.

"Administrator. I trust zat - "

"I will do the talking here. I think you'll agree that I'm much better at it than either of you." Spy ground his cigarette between his teeth, but closed his mouth.

"Thank you. Now, you are familiar with the rules of the Reliable Excavation and Demolition? Her voice was like an ice blade pressed between the shoulders.

"Naturally."

"Sniper?"

"Yes."

"I'm sure you know why you are here today."

"Yes."

"Yeah."

"Excellent. Then we need not waste my time. I am cutting this month's salary by fifty per cent for both of you – " Sniper sat up quickly and Spy gawped, his cigarette falling to the floor. The Frenchman swiftly stamped it out.

"– and you will be assigned community work every day for one week, starting from today. We couldn't really find any job matching your aptitudes, so we took what we could get. Details are in the file." A pause. Spy opened his mouth again but was cut off.

"I would advise you not to argue. You are dismissed."

They waited for a second, but since nothing more happened they got up, pushed their chairs back under the table with metallic screeches and left the room, Spy taking the file as he went. He shut the door behind them.

Sniper realised he had been holding his breath, and he let it out, slowly so that Spy wouldn't hear. The latter was lighting another cigarette and taking a long drag.

"Put yer stinkin' fag out, Spook."

"Hmmmmm, no." Spy instead opened the file and flicked through. Sniper bit his tongue and looked over his colleague's shoulder, holding his breath.

Spy opened the file and scanned it briefly. He closed the file. He counted to ten. He opened and read it again. Once again the words were so horrible that he was forced to snap it shut. The visible parts of his face paled to a deathly white. His arms dropped limply and he stared at the wall, his eyes bugging out like those of a child having walked into its parents bedroom at an inopportune moment.

Sniper made an impatient grab.

"Well? What is it?" Spy allowed the file to slip from between his gloved fingers. Sniper shot Spy a quick look with his eyebrows raised, then flipped the file open. He read it once. Twice. A look of undiluted terror crept into his eyes. He too stared at the wall in mute shock and horror. Oh, god. It had to be a nightmare. Please, please let it be a nightmare.

Inside the file was a leaflet. A bright yellow leaflet covered with pictures of horribly happy children.

 _"Teufort Daycare Centre for small children, run by volunteers,"_ said the leaflet. _"All children between the ages of two and six welcome. People wishing to volunteer may contact Mrs. Hall."_

 _Thump._

Back in the rec room, Engineer stopped playing and raised his head.

"Hey, d'you hear something?" Scout frowned as he absently sketched a very rude scene involving Spy and the Eiffel Tower.

"Hm?"

"I said, d'you hear anything?"

"Nah." Engineer settled back comfortably.

"Ah. Probably nuthin'."


	7. Chapter 7

**Saving Private Haircut Pt. 2**

 **Congratulations to Mitt T, for spotting the Invisible Inaudible Immaterial Unsmellable Woman in Chapter 3! He wins... erm... *puts on glasses and flips through some pages* ... An Invisible Inaudible Immaterial Unsmellable trophy! Proudly display it on your mantlepiece to mistify and concern guests for years to come.**

 **Will be sent to you just as soon as we can find it.**

 **Also, to those who might be confused later on: "Tory" is a British term used to refer to members of the Conservative Party. According to Wikipedia, it is also used perjoratively by members of the Labour Party in Australia. But if this isn't true, then do let me know. Now, on with the show.**

"Oh, it's always nice to have a couple of extra helping hands during the school holidays. Especially two young men like yourselves – getting involved in childcare and all. People tend to be on vacation this time of the year. You'll be taking the afternoon shift, so you won't have to worry about serving lunch! There, isn't that nice?" Mrs. Hall chatted brightly as she led her two reluctant volunteers accross the playground. They took in the bright, cheery painted windows and smiling cartoon characters with the same grim resignation as a prisoner-of-war being led off to his camp.

"Have you had any experience with childcare before?" Continued Mrs. Hall obliviously. Spy thought of his team.

"Some," he said. Sniper, unsure as to what he was on about, gave him a half-suspicious, half-hopeful look.

"Oh good, good," trilled their guide. "But there's really nothing much to worry about. All you have to do, really, is supervise them and make sure they don't swallow any toys and play with them and feed them and read them stories and get their food and for the smaller ones change their diapers. You see? Nothing to it." Sniper went pale.

Mrs. Hall, keeping up a constant stream of chatter and reassurances, led them inside. After they had pulled some freezer bags over their feet (Spy almost moaned like a soul in torment as he did this), they went down a corridor with a plastic floor and duck-yellow walls lined with little coat-racks, finally stopping between two opposite doors.

"There. Now, these are the playrooms. We separate the small ones from the bigger ones, you see. This door on the left is for the two to three year olds, and that one is for the four to six year olds! Since we're short on volunteers at the moment, you'll have to each supervise one group, but I'm sure that won't be a problem. They're sweet children, no trouble at all. The rules are quite simple: the bigger children are allowed twenty minutes of cartoons a day, and can play outside in the afternoon. Snacks are at four o'clock – the food is in the fridges. The toddlers stay indoors and have naps after their snacks. There, that's everything. I'll leave you to decide between yourselves who will take which group. If you need me, I'll be in my office. Or just give the cameras a wave. Please, don't hesitate to ask if there's anything I can do. Anything at all." With a parting warm smile, Mrs. Hall promptly retreated to her office, sat with her back to the camera monitor, switched on the TV, turned the volume up as high as it would go and settled down with a bucket of ice-cream for a well-deserved holiday.

Back in the corridor, a deep silence fell.

Spy looked at Sniper. Sniper looked at Spy. Both dove for the right-hand door.

There was a brief and undignified struggle as the two grown men scrabbled and scratched and punched, before Spy managed to break past with a well-aimed kick. The Frenchman leapt through the doorway with a crow of victory which he would later completely deny having uttered and slammed it shut behind him.

It took a few minutes for Sniper to uncurl himself from the foetal position. When he finally did, red-faced, disgruntled, his groin radiating pain, he got up, and plodded towards the remaining door, wincing with each step and trying to move his legs as little as possible.

Spy flew through the door and slammed it behind him. Hah! Not for him the slobbering two-year-olds and the nappy-changing! He snorted with glee as he thought of his colleague facing the terrors of the toddler playroom. He plucked a cigarette from the packet he had hidden up his sleeve and prepared to light it.

And then he noticed that twenty or so children were watching him with astonishment.

He hesitated for a moment, before hiding the lighter and cigarette behind his back.

"You didn't see that." No response. The children simply stared with wide eyes. Some were balanced on the back of a tired old sofa, some had their heads poking out from unlikely hiding-places, some crouched on the floor with toys in their hands. One red-headed little boy had his finger stuck halfway up his nostril.

Spy suddenly felt uncomfortabe. He slipped the cigarette and lighter back in their respective hiding places, straightened up and tried to pretend that he had merely clasped his hands behind his back for effect.

"Ahem. Good afternoon, children." Blank stare.

"Yeee-eeess. So. Here is our current situation: I have been sent here against my will to supervise you for a week. Let us begin with the assumption that I do not like you and you do not like me. What I propose, then, is a treaty of sorts. You can do whatever you like here and I will not bozzer you, I will read in the corner and you will not pester me to play flick-the-bogey or whatever it is you children do. Agreed?" The children exchanged confused glances before turning back to him. Spy began to feel slightly desperate. If these beings could not understand the concept of a treaty negotiation, he was lost.

"Hey Mister," said a small voice by his knees, "why are you wearing a ski mask?" Spy looked down at the questioner. It was the red-haired nostril-mining boy, who was now pointing at Spy's face with the newly-extracted digit. Spy gingerly took a step backwards.

"It is not a ski mask. It is a balaclava."

"What's the difference?"

"A ski mask is what you wear to go skiing. A balaclava is what you wear to... go... balaclavering. And commit crime. But mostly balaclavering."

"What's baclav... Balacavala... Balavacla... that thing you said?"

"It is the act of wearing a balaclava. Obviously."

"Oh," said the child, mystified. "Yeah. I knew that actually, only I forgot but now I remember." They were frowning now, their heads cocked.

"In fact," said Spy, struck by sudden inspiration, "the reason I am balaclavering today is because I 'ave a condition, and my balaclava 'elps to fight it. It is a rare, extraodinary, and very very real condition. The doctor says I might be ze only person in ze world to 'ave it."

 _Oooooh,_ thought the children.

"What is it? What is it?"

"Is it icky?"

"Can we see?"

"Are you sure you want to know? It might not be appropriate for little children."

"It is! Tell us! Tell us!" Spy pretended to scan them critically for a moment, before sighing heavily.

"Fine, but you must promise – upon the life of, er... your favourite soft toy – not to talk about it to your parents. Or Mrs. Hall."

"Promise! Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die!" They clamoured.

"Very well zen. My condition – " He choked, overcome with emotion, and put a hand to his forehead dramatically. "Excuse me. My condition is zis: if I stay in a room zat's very very quiet for a very long time, I – I will explode in a shower of candy and toys and dinosaurs and princesses and magic pixie dust. Which is why you must be sure to make lots and lots of noise so zat doesn't 'appen." The children gazed, awe and wonder lighting up their eyes. They sat or stood or balanced in tight silence, wondering exactly how quiet they could be and get away with it. Spy had to push down a blissful smile. He went to the corner of the room, sat down, and produced a magazine which he began to read. The children remained perfectly silent, all watching intently.

Eventually, however, another one got bored and spoke up.

"Hey Mister, why do you talk so weird?" Spy looked up, offended.

"It's not weird. It's an accent."

"It is weird."

"I have an accent," continued Spy in a dignified manner, as if he had not heard, "because I come from France."

"Where?"

"France." Not a trace of recognition. "You know, France. In Europe." Nothing. "Between Spain and Germany. Long-time bad relationship with England. Where the French Revolution happened." Nope. Spy sighed.

"Baguettes and the Eiffel Tower," he growled.

"Oooooooh, yes." There were nods. With a surly expression, Spy shook out his magazine and firmly hid his face behind it, hoping they would take the hint.

They didn't.

"Still, do you have to talk like that _all_ the time? Can't you do a normal voice?" Spy smacked his magazine down on his knees and was about to say something scathingly sarcastic when he thought better of it. Instead, he drew in a long breath, and serenely fixed his eyes on the middle distance.

"Well, yes. I can. In fact, I can do lost of voices. It's part of my job," he admitted, alternating between several flawless accents.

"Then why don't you do it all the time?"

"Weeeeell... Because women – actually, never mind." _Ouf_ , he thought. That was close. He remembered that there was a TV here, and soothing relief washed over him. For, as parents and babysitters around the world know, turning on a screen is basically the equivalent of deactivating any children in the vicinity.

"Who wants to watch cartoons?"

The right-hand door slammed. Sniper plodded painfully to the remaining door and, with a sense of impeding doom, opened it.

A hurricane of sound swept through his ears. He was confonted with a horde of toddlers. They were everywhere. Clambering over the furniture, swarming over the floor, popping out of cardboard boxes and cupboards. Wherever he looked, his eyes encountered what seemed to be dozens of chortling, squirming, dribbling children, gabbling away in nonsense syllables and smashing things together with clumsy fists. The corners of the upholstery was chewed and dripping with saliva, the floor was littered with slimy dismembered toys.

Sniper's heart quailed. But he took a deep breath and stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. The toddlers, hearing the noise, turned to look at him. _Adult_ , they thought with interest. _Adult = food and stories and playing._ Immediately the horde was crawling and shuffling towards him, penning him in a circle of wide dripping smiles. Quaking, Sniper backed up until he felt the door against his back. Little moist hands gripped his trousers. A dozen mouths chatted at him.

"What?" Sniper gasped. "No, look – one at a time, please, I don't – sorry, what?" The toddlers jabbered away unintelligibly, their voices growing increasingly stringent and demanding as Sniper continued to stammer that he didn't understand. In the end they turned away, disgruntled. This adult was clearly sub-standard.

One little girl, more determined than the rest, stayed.

"Tory!" She squealed. "Tory! Tory!" Sniper stared, amazed. This was the most politically-minded toddler he had ever met.

"Jesus. Labor Party's relaxed its recruitment standards since I left. You watch your mouth, kid, you hear me? You're much too young to be saying things like that. And I'm not even interested in politics anyway." The adult gabbled something incomprehensible. The little girl frowned. This poor slow creature would have to be shown. She picked up a worn old picture-book and waved it imperiously at him, bawling.

"Tory! Tory!"

"Oooooh right, story, yeah. Give it here, then." Reading didn't seem too difficult. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Sniper snatched the book, sat down on a chair, screamed and shot to his feet again. He turned and saw that plastic bricks had been wedged into the lining of the seat. The little girl bounced up and down, pounding his shins.

"TOREEEEEE!"

"Yes!" He snarled. "All right! All right, you little madam! Tory! Just give me a blo... blithering second!" He ran a quick safety-check on the ground, sat down cross-legged and began to read.

" _Once upon a time there were three billy goats called Gruff. One day, they set off in search of some sweet, green grass._ What kind of tripe is this? _Very soon the goats came to a river. Across the river was a meadow, and in the meadow grew the finest grass that any of them had ever seen._ You should see what they used to read to me. " _Old McDonald had a wild animal wrestling establishement"_. Man, that was the stuff." Sniper stared reminiscently into the distance, before an insistent tug got him to continue with the story. As he read, a new and suspicious smell stole into his nostrils, one that struck fear into his heart. He steeled himself, ignoring the little girl as she pointed to the book impatiently. He cleared his throat, and the toddlers turned to look at him curiously.

"Right, which one of you just had an accident? Come on, I can smell it. Own up." One of the children looked at the ground shiftily, then lost its balance and fell on its rump with an ominous squelch. Sniper leapt to his feet.

"You!" The child, who wasn't keen on having his game interrupted by some tedious lie-down, toddled away as fast as his stumpy legs could carry him. Sniper gave chase, the little girl crawling after him, outraged and shouting at the top of her voice.

"TOOOOOORY!"

"Yes, yes, one second!" Sniper filled his lungs to try and muster an authoritative shout.

"Listen, kid, you stop RIGHT THERE or – " He stepped on a toy car and fell flat on his face.

Spy was settled comfortably in an old armchair, his right foot resting on his left knee, reading his magazine. Around him, twenty children sat on the faded carpet, hypnotised by the television screen. He glanced at the timer on his watch. 19min34s, it said. Twenty minutes tops, wasn't that what Mrs. Hall had said? Hm. Spy considered for a second, then paused the timer and went back to his magazine.

"TORY! TORY! TOOOREEEEE!" Sniper staggered to his feet and lurched after the fleeing boy, who had taken refuge under an armchair. Sniper thrust an arm after him. The little girl, having caught up, started whacking him over the head with the picture book. At the other end of the room another little girl snatched a doll from a boy, who promptly started wailing.

"WAAAAAH!"

"TORY!"

"Ow! Gah, stop it, you diminuitive health menace! You, give it back! And you! Come out!"

"Nuh!"

"TORY!"

"WAAAAAH!" Sniper's hand found a wriggling leg, and with a loud triumphant "Hah!" he drew out the squirming toddler.

"Got you!" He carried it to the nappy-changing station and started fumbling with the straps, frowning and mumbling under his breath.

"What the...? Who the hell makes these things?" The little girl was still there. She thrust the picture-book up, screaming. Sniper winced.

"Fine! Lemme see that." He glanced at the pages. "And then the goats decided that they didn't really want the sweet green grass after all and went home the end. There, off you go now. Oh, for... what now?" A little boy on the other end of the room had tripped and fallen lightly on the soft fluffy carpet. To be on the safe side he let out a blood-curdling scream. Sniper blanched, frightened by the awful rending noise.

"Hang on, kid, I'm coming! Just – hold on!" He wove his way to the fallen child, dancing aside to avoid treading on anyone and hindered by the book-obsessed girl, who with a sniff had latched onto his leg, where she clung with the tenacity of a limpet. Sniper reached the wounded victim and knelt down beside him.

"Right," he panted, "what is it?" The boy, satisfied now that his life-threatening plight had been paid attention to, switched his scream off like a lamp and started playing happily. With a muttered curse, Sniper turned to see that the kid on the nappy-changing station was attempting a stealthy getaway.

"Oi! You stay right there until I come back, d'you hear?" He barely had time to see his order sulkily acknowledged before turning his attention to the doll-thief. The victim of the crime was still wailing mournfully, his head turned to the heavens.

"Snatching isn't nice!" Snapped Sniper, as he snatched the doll. "Now you go find some other toy to play with!" He gave the doll back to its rightful owner, who quietened, but the girl immediately started yelling in his place. Sniper began to feel his panic level rising again.

"Well – share, then!" He threw the doll down between them, and the next instant they were screaming and fighting over it. Sniper quickly snatched it up again, harrowed.

"Fine! No one gets the doll!" And he tucked it into his breast pocket. They both burst into a piercing duet. The little girl attached to his leg was also still howling steadfastly, even though she was slowly turning blue. Sniper, now the colour of a ripe tomato, set his mouth and determinedly turned back to the nappy-changing station, only to find it deserted.

His strength failed him. For a moment he thought about quitting this whole business. But – he couldn't. The Administrator had made it quite clear that he was unofficially on probation, so he had better not mess this up. He checked the clock. Five. _Just another hour_.

Meanwhile, the nappy-fugitive had resumed his uphoslery mountaineering. Sniper tried to sneak up and take him by surprise. Unfortunately, being five times taller than anyone else in the room tends to make you stand out, and he was spotted almost immediately. The toddler squealed and scrambled to the very end of the sofa, where he reached out to try and grab the cupboard.

"Hey – hey, watch it, you're going to fall!" His warning was cheerfully ignored.

"I'm not joking! Get down from there! Oh, shi-" Sure enough, the toddler began to wobble dangerously. His grin switched into a bug-eyed look of fear. His arms windmilled, his knees rocked back and forth, and he began to think that perhaps this hadn't been the best idea after all. Sniper, with a flash of panic, rushed to catch him.

The toddler fell.

Time slowed. His limbs seemed to move as if through water. He wasn't going to make it. There were too many things in the way. Stampeding over someone else's kids was probably not a good way to keep his job. There was only one option. In a supreme moment of heroism and self-sacrifice, Sniper extended his arms and flung himself headlong, little girl and all.

He landed on a field of unfinished lego constructions and the falling toddler landed on his head.

Understandably cushioned, it rolled off with a chirrup, unharmed. The little girl wasn't hurt either – she appeared to have landed on the corner of a thick carpet, along with Sniper's foot. The bits of plastic were digging painfully into the marksman's stomach and chest. He slowly let out his breath in a long, long sigh.

Then his sigh was rather rudely turned into a sharp _oof_. He wondered why things were falling from the sky before it happened again, only this time the _oof_ was a reedy wheeze. Craning his neck, he saw that the rest of the horde, seeing what fun their cohorts were having, had decided to join in. They were lining up along the edge of the sofa. Sniper's eyes widened.

"Oh, no no no no no no – !" They jumped and Sniper gained an enlightening insight into the life of a trampoline.

The clock ticked. The cartoons played softly. Spy peacefully turned a page.

The toddlers were whooping and laughing, clinging to his clothes, swarming up his legs like goblins. His yells and cautionary shouts were lost in the confusion. Sniper reeled and tottered desperately, trying to pry them off while simultaneously keeping his balance and some semblance of dignity. It was not a very successful enterprise on any front.

On the monitor screen, to which constant vigilance and attention was still diligently not being paid by Mrs. Hall, CAM06 displayed a jumpy, black-and-white image of a man desperately shouting and waving at the camera, as a tide of small children swallowed him up until he fell backwards and the laughing, wriggling mass covered him completely. After a while an thin arm emerged, frantically shaking a white hankerchief.

"Stop!" He shouted, his voice muffled. "I surrender! I surrender!" No one even heard him. Sniper began to pull himself backwards on his elbows, burning his skin on the carpet, but the crushing scrum kept pace with him. The back of his head bumped on something hollow. _The fridge_ , he thought. The fridge. Snacks.

Grimacing with effort, he pushed himself up on his arms an reached up. His groping hand found the handle, and with a grunt he yanked it open. Then, feeling the cold plastic packets inside, he began to throw them out randomly, yelling.

"Snacks! Snacks! Snacks!" The effect was instantaneous. The toddlers rushed to pick up the packets. He kept throwing out the food and within minutes, the whole horde was scattered throughout the room and the air was full with the sound of contented munching. Sniper let his head fall weakly against the fridge. He breathed deeply, to reinflate his squashed chest. His limbs were splayed out like those of an abandoned puppet.

When he felt sufficiently recovered, he painfully pulled himself up, closed the fridge, picked up his hat – which had fallen off in the frenzy – and put it back on, found the little boy who had caused all this mess, shoved a biscuit into his hands to keep him quiet, and finally managed to change the nappy. His movements were slow and mechanical. He didn't even have the energy to find the smell unpleasant. And he suspected that he might have put the new nappy on back to front, but at this stage he couldn't care less. Job done, he let himself collapse against the wall again and closed his eyes.

Presently he became aware that something was breathing close to him. He opened his eyes again to find a tiny toddler with chipmunk-like face and a small solitary tuft of hair gazing at him in adoration. Sniper closed his eyes again with a huff.

"Oh, leave me alone, wouldja? Go and stuff your face like the others," he croaked. Ecstatic at having been talked to, the child smiled like a jack-o-lantern, revealing a single milk tooth planted in his upper gums.

"My name's Chomper," he said in a voice that matched his size.

"Huh. That's a funny name. Why do they call you that?" Sniper really should have seen it coming. Ordinarily, he would have. But now he was exhausted, physically as well as mentally and emotionally, and so failed to notice the obvious implication. The toddler proceeded to clamp his gums around the hapless marksman's forearm with gusto, causing the aforementioned hapless marksman to let out a very unmanly noise.

Spy checked his watch and sighed. Time had slipped by almost unnoticed. He stood up, stretched and switched off the television, arousing a loud, disappointed "aaaawwww?". Spy clasped his hands behind his back.

"Children, listen carefully. Your parents are due in five minutes and what I am about to tell you is of ze upmost importance. Today, you have done some colouring-in, zen you played with ze toy cars, zen you played tag and grandmuzzer's footsteps in ze playground and you most definitely did not see your supervisor smoking in ze camera blind-spot. Any questions? No? Then – we may adjourn." Everyone nodded solemnly.

After the last child had been collected, Spy made his way back to Sniper's van at a leisurely pace. This had turned out to be quite a relaxing afternoon, he thought contentedly. He might just enjoy this little holiday after all.

He found Sniper's van parked in a street nearby, looking outlandish compared to all the sleek smaller cars, neatly lined up like rows of fat shiny beetles. Spy held his breath as he climbed up into the passenger seat and wound the window down.

A few minutes later he jumped as the other door was violently yanked open. Sniper stomped into the van, his hat pulled low over his sunglasses, his mouth a surly diagonal line, and slammed the door shut behind him, making the whole van rock. Spy quirked an eyebrow at the sight of his colleague brutalizing his beloved doors. Completely ignoring Spy, Sniper sat in the driver's seat panting and wincing for a moment, before laying his trembling hands on the wheel and letting out a fragile, quivering sigh.

Spy opened his mouth.

"Shut up!" Snarled Sniper viciously.

Spy closed his mouth.

Medic studiously pored over his operation table, scalpel held in his bloodstained hand. He peered at the object of his attention, fascinated. It never failed to amaze him. It was something the likes of which had never been seen before on this planet, and would probably never be seen again. It was a miracle, a continuous source of surprise and admiration, and a permanently raised middle finger to the laws of science. It was Demoman's liver. Medic had calculated that Demo should by rights have dissolved into a quivering whiskey-saturated jelly when he was twenty. Of course, his imagination may have got inflamed somewhere along the line.

Sniper burst through the door, his hat askew and his eyes wild.

"Chloroform!" He shouted and began to rummage through Medic's stuff. Medic looked up, annoyed then consternated.

"Um. Hello."

"Chloroform! I – I need chloroform! It's an emergency! Medical emergency!" Sniper drew a severed hand out from a draw, checked it just long enough to verify that it was not chloroform, then threw it over his shoulder and continued his search. Medic and Demoman exchanged a perplexed look. Sniper rushed to the fridge, wrenched it open and ransacked it, tossing its contents behind him. Frozen specimens, samples, preserved internal organs, a pickled mutant breadloaf, a screaming BLU Spy head and a half-eaten gingerbread man sailed through the air.

"Cooee," cheered Demo. "Look at 'im go!" Sniper abandoned the now empty fridge and began to scrabble around in the doves' roosts, causing an uproar among its inhabitants. Outraged, Medic flew to the defence of his beloved birds.

"Stop zat! You're affecting zeir stress levels! Archimedes has a very delicate disposition! Come over here, sit down. I don't have chloroform." Sniper slumped into a chair.

"You don't?"

"No." Sniper could have sobbed. Instead, he reached for Demo's trusty ever-present bottle. His hand flopped twitchily over the table like a beached fish. His searching fingers found a glass surface. He gripped it and he downed the lot. Medic wondered whether he should tell him that he had just drunk half a litre of bleach. Ah, it would be fine. He'd do it later.

"Vhy do you vant chlororform anyvay?"

"Oh, erm... interest," said Sniper evasively. Medic looked at him severely.

"It hasn't got anysing to do viz your community vork, has it?"

"No..."

"It has," supplied Demo helpfully.

"Well, all right, it has," snapped the Australian. "But what's the harm? All I want to do is – give them a little enforced nap-time, that's all. Little sleepy-bye. Won't hurt them. Besides, I feel I'm entitled to a rest after what I've put up with today. Now tell me, what's wrong with that?"

"What's _wrong_ viz zat? Drugging little children? It vould be unethical, zat's vat!" Exclaimed Medic as he casually sliced off a corner of Demo's liver for future experiments, possibly cloning. The doctor tutted and shook his head. "Drugging children..."

"You won't help me then?"

"Not like zat, no." Sniper hung his head.

"All right. Thanks, doc." He picked himself up and left, shoulders slumped.

Medic watched him go, then turned back to his test, which instantly pushed everything else out of his head. After much debate, he had finally elected to try out the bread injection. It was the right moment – because of the unavailability of two of their number, the team had been allowed a whole staggering week of ceasefire. It as an unhoped-for opportunity to explore the effects of his formula in full. The big shiny syringe, full of murky liquid, was sitting on the table right now. Medic held it up against the light and flicked it twice with his fingernails. Demo watched, his wide grin fading into a look of unease.

"Eh, doc, you did say this was only some kind of new sedative... right? Because, um – that's sort of the only reason I said yes. 'Part from the whiskey."

"Of course it is," smiled Medic reassuringly as he turned back to the operation table. Had he glanced out of the window, he would have seen a dark figure shambling off into the night.


	8. Chapter 8

**Yee-eeess, so I had a major case of writer's block for this one. But it's finally done!**

 **Saving Private Haircut Pt.3**

Engineer and Pyro strolled down a corridor in the RED base. They were headed outside, for a relaxing hour of, respectively, basking in the sunshine with a bottle of beer, and arson. Engineer scratched his cheek as a sudden thought occurred to him.

"Huh. Have you seen Soldier lately?"

"Mphm-Mphm."

"That's funny, me neither. He didn't kick us out of bed this morning. Or yesterday morning. Maybe he's sick."

"Hmph," said Pyro in a tone which to Engineer's trained ear managed to convey a vague acknowledgement of this theory while cautioning it with a sprig of uncertainty coupled with a deep confidence in the knowledge that Soldier was never sick, and even when he was he didn't notice, and throwing in a completely unrelated remark about how lovely and propicious to fire-spreading the weather was.

"Yeah, hah, that's true. About Soldier, I mean. Wonder what's keeping him."

"Hmph," said Pyro in a tone which this time communicated a tinge of worry coloured with compassionate reassurance for his friend laced with admiration for Engineer's solidarity to Soldier in wondering after a two-day interval where Soldier had disappeared to, topping it off with the suggestions that Soldier had simply spent a day hanging his American flags out to dry, or was staying outside to better salute passing eagles, or had gone out into the desert to wage war with some prairie dogs, underlaying this discourse with a subtle hint of uninterest.

"Maybe," said Engineer, unconvinced. "Still, come to think of it, I don't think I've seen him since we put him in that cupboard." He paused and his expression grew slightly worried. "Have we checked that he ain't still in there?"

"Hmph," said Pyro in a particularly complex and layered tone which now evoqued slightly embarrassed denial sprinkled with suprise and a hint of intrigue at this mysterious disappearance of their in his humble opinion esteemed albeit rowdy team-mate though also flavoured with the thought that Soldier was probably all right wherever he was, and that they should not worry about him, but additionally requesting in a delicate mix of suggestion and plea that though the store-cupboard would assuredly have to be checked at some point, perhaps they could do it _after_ they had basked in the sunshine and set fire to things.

"All right, I suppose. But still, let's hope that his cervical cavity has not been prematurely disconnected from his bodily sucture outside of respawn range." Pyro mumbled assent. They walked on, crossing paths with Scout, who was headed for the rec room. Engineer hailed him.

"Hey, Scout! Have you noticed that Soldier hasn't been around lately?"

"I know," said Scout. "It's been great." He passed them and strutted on.

"Ah well," sighed Engineer. "He'd better turn up before the end of the ceasefire, that's all."

* * *

A short way away, Sniper lurched out of the respawn room, coughing and growling. He'd spent the evening wondering what on Earth Demoman kept in his bottle before dying in agony on the way to Medic's lab in the small hours of the morning. Not a good start to the day.

And no chance of it getting any better. He let his head fall against the wall with a groan. In a few hours he would be back in that – in _there_. And no doubt _they_ would remember the fun they had jumping on him last time. _They_ 'd be ready for him. _They_ were such a terrifying notion to Sniper that _they_ necessitated their own italic letters in his mind.

Horrible visions floated before his eyes, freezing his insides. In his life, Sniper had fought crocodiles. He'd boxed kangaroos. He'd wrestled sharks, giant snakes, and deadlier still, his fellow Australians. But God, he couldn't face those brats again. Not a whole afternoon.

Maybe he could fake sick? His desperate imagination seized the idea. Yes, and he'd get Medic to write a note for him. Although the Administrator would see through it. His hope collapsed.

He racked his brains, haunted by the threat of having to go through yesterday's ordeal again. He chased round and round, scrabbled for the faintest whiff of an idea. He suddenly found one and was brought up short.

Spy didn't seem to have any trouble dealing with the rugrats.

No. He wasn't _that_ desperate.

Was he?

He knew he couldn't spend another afternoon with the brats. He wouldn't cope. He'd crack. They'd find him in the evening with a nappy on his head singing the national anthem. Maybe, just maybe, he could...

Christ – what was he thinking? Ask Spy for help? Might as well ask a hungry T-Rex to please go easy on the neighbours. No, Sniper told himself firmly. No, no, no. He still had some sort of self-respect left. He made himself vow that he would not, under any condition, go knocking on Spy's door for help.

Half an hour later, Sniper knocked on Spy's door for help.

The door opened, and Spy appeared in the opening. He identified his visitor and his eyebrows flickered upwards. He waited for an explanation.

Sniper took a breath, wishing that he could shrivel into an unidentifiable puddle on the floor then and there.

"Um, morning, Spy. Just wonderin' if, uh, y – I know that things haven't been exactly... civil, lately. Or, ever, to be, er, completely honest." Spy blinked.

"Why, yes, I 'ad noticed something like zat. I seenk it came to me when you shoved a machete through my face."

"Um, yeah, that... did happen. But let's be fair here, you killed me too. Why we're here, isn't it. But anyway," Sniper added hurriedly when he saw the door beginning to close, "I came to ask something. You... probably heard... that I had a few... problems with the kids yesterday. I think I might've made a bit of noise."

"You screamed like a pig on fire."

"Right. You did hear. So my question is... maybe you could help me out, show me how to deal with the kids, and –"

"Ah. I see. Let me consider." Spy pursed his mouth in deep meditation, while Sniper waited, feeling stupid.

"I accept," pronounced Spy solemnly. Sniper's jaw dropped. He couldn't believe his luck.

"Really?"

"No. Goodbye." The door closed. Sniper thumped on it with his fist.

"No, wait! I'll, I'll..." What could convince a bloke like Spy? "I'll – I don't know, what'd you want? There must be something!"

"I want you to clear off."

"You'll help me if I clear off?"

"No, but it'll help the woodwork on my door. Zat didn't come cheap, you know." Sniper stopped banging, and held his curled fist in the air instead. He was out of ideas.

"All right. Spy? I will say this once in my life. And never again." Sniper closed his eyes and gulped.

"Anchhlp."

"Excuse me?"

"I... _indrhlp_."

"You indrhlp. Oh yes, it all makes perfect sense now. Please come inside and wipe your smelly hands all over my furniture," said Spy, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Sniper sighed and sucked air in through his teeth.

"I... need... your help," he growled, spitting every word out through clenched jaws. "All right?"

There was a long pause.

Then the door opened, and Spy was standing there, a glint in his eyes.

"I'll do it," he said. "On one condition."

"Oh boy," gloated Scout, who to Sniper's outrage had been sitting to the side all through this exchange with a bucket of popcorn and a huge grin. "I know those words. I'm gonna enjoy this."

* * *

Medic squinted for the zillionth ballimilionth time at the dozens of sheets of paper in his hand, all covered with inextricable calculations in tiny writing. He'd read and re-read them during the course of the morning and always come back to the same conclusion: his reasoning was sound. Then why was Demoman still snoozing peacefully on the table, no sign of genetic mutation at all? Not even a slightly breadloafy pimple! In a fit of frustration Medic threw his papers into the air. They floated back down and settled around his feet like leaves. He kicked them away irritably. They made a sort of apathetic flop that only annoyed him further.

The doctor sighed and leaned backwards, pinching the bridge of his nose. His eyes were sore, his breath stank, his hands were caked in dry blood that he hadn't bothered to wash off, and his right shoulder still bore the mark of the little gift Archimedes had been thoughtful enough to leave there. He'd been watching his test subject all night. He remembered the overpowering excitement, that sensation of waiting with bated breath he always got when he knew – _knew_ – that he stood on the edge of something if not great, then at least morbidly interesting. He'd felt each second tick away on the clock, every stroke of the long hand plucking at his heartstrings like a hand on a harp. Time had passed, and... nothing.

Nothing! After a twelve-hour period of sleep Demoman should have passed into a secondary phase in which the mutation would flourish rapidly in his body, and then a final phase in which he should by rights have turned into a greenish, arguably edible humanoid bread monster. The first phase had worked like a charm. The mutation just hadn't progressed beyond that point. Which was the worst, dullest, most vexing way his experiment could have failed, really. His aim hadn't been to create a bread-based sleeping pill.

He hadn't miscalculated the phases, he was sure of it. It couldn't be the dosage either – too much and too little would both have resulted in a grisly and highly entertaining death. What was he missing?! Perhaps the alcohol in Demo's bloodstream had neutralised the infection. It wasn't likely, but it was possible. But then why hadn't the Scot just woken up?

Medic sighed again and pulled himself up. He would examine the syringe he had used, analyse the residue. Perhaps he would find come contamination that would explain everything. He picked up the syringe from the sink where he had tossed it and walked to the fridge. He opened the fridge and froze. Not due to some uncommon efficiency on the part of his fridge, but because of what he had just seen. There, right in front of him, next to the half-eaten gingerbread man, sat a large test tube containing traces of a murky liquid, identical to the one that he been injected into Demo – except for a few sodden orange crumbs and drops of icing clinging to its sides. It was the tube in which he'd kept the liquid he'd used to sedate Soldier a couple of days previously.

Oh, he thought. Oh.

* * *

"Oh, right on time! I hope everything went well yesterday? Not there was any reason for it to go badly. I was watching you the whole time. You did just fine. Naturals, both of you." Mrs. Hall smiled broadly, and Sniper did his best to contain himself. He did this by focusing on the shaking of his knees, which worked quite well.

"Thank you, madam," replied Spy smoothly. "It was a pleasure." Mrs. Hall chuckled and fluttered, then turned to look at Sniper. The latter was sweating in an overcoat three sizes too big, excavated from the very depths of the store room in the base. "I 'ad forgotten about zis", Spy had said idly when he passed it over. "I seenk I used it once to impersonate an flatulent scab-ridden morbidly overweight tramp living in the bins outside a fast food restaurant and surviving exclusively on rancid onion rings. Don't mind ze smell." Ironically enough, Spy had found his own suggestion much harder to follow than Sniper. The Frenchman had refused to sit next to his colleague in the van, opting instead to strap himself to the roof. He was now busy maintaining a security perimeter of about fifteen feet between them. Mrs. Hall's pointed sniffs seemed to indicate that this was a choice she could thoroughly get behind.

"Are you quite all right, sir?" She said. "Would you like to drop your coat off?" _In the nearest bonfire available_ , she added in her head.

"No thanks," said Sniper uncomfortably. "I'll keep it on, if that's all right."

"Of course," said Mrs. Hall in a tone which indicated that it wasn't. Sniper shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"I... I have a cold. Erm – cough cough," he finally added, feebly. The smile stretched painfully until Sniper thought her lips would snap like overly-sollicited elastics.

"Oh yes. Those summertime colds, eh?"

"Yeah," muttered Sniper, wondering if she was being sarcastic. Spy discreetly rested his face in his palm for a moment.

As with the day before, they were led to the playrooms, effusively reassured, urged to contact her if anything at all was required and then utterly abandoned in favour of Desperate Directors of Daycare Centres season three.

Spy strolled into his playroom, switched the TV on, and settled in his armchair, activating the communicator hidden in his watch with a deft twist of dial.

Sniper crept, terrified, into his playroom, and dove behind a sofa like a soldier rushing for cover in the middle of a shootout. He could hear the toddlers squealing and chortling. With an involuntary gulp, he shrugged his coat off. Underneath, an entire armoury of snacks and children's toys had been strategically duct-taped to his clothes. He looked like a runaway from a spin-off Lady G. concert.

He gingerly held up walkie-talkie he had smuggled in under his coat. He licked his lips and spoke into the device in a nervous undertone.

"Spy?"

"The device is whisper-sensitive. No need to yell."

"Right. Anyway, I'm in position. Over." Spy raised his eyebrows. " _Over_." Well, maybe he could have some fun with this.

"Identify prime threats," he ordered.

"Copy that." Sniper risked a nanosecondic peek over the top of the sofa. Then he had to risk a slightly longer one because his brain refused to work with nanosecondic footage. But he got there in the end, and noted the positions of the toddlers he and Spy had picked out as the most dangerous.

"Identified."

"Roger. Wait – what's zat sound in ze background?"

"Sound?" Sniper turned around and almost jumped out of his skin. During their whispered conversation, a group of the children had crept up behind and were now watching in absolute bewilderement as a grown man crouched behind a sofa muttering to himself. A few had found chairs to crouch behind and were babbling into their hands, in an attempt to find out what Sniper saw in it.

Sniper waited, frozen. He searched for a course of action to take, but his brain waved cheerily and popped out for a moment.

The toddlers recognised him, and a crafty look grew in the back of their eyes, but they noticed his vertical position, which made him an unsuitable recipient for bouncing, and retreated to wait until a more propicious moment. Sniper breathed out in relief. Spy's voice crackled out of the walkie-talkie.

"Sniper? Come in, Sniper, report."

"Sniper here. Was ambushed, but enemies have retreated." Spy grinned silently. This was too good.

Sniper suddenly noticed that someone was tugging at his trousers. He looked down.

"What is it?"

"Play tea party!" The boy pointed to a miniature set of plastic cups set on a tiny table surrounded by five matching chairs. Of course. Of course he'd have to do this too.

Sniper sighed, and with the look of a man past caring, squeezed himself into one of the chairs. He recieved the tiny cup given to him and held it between thumb and forefinger. The little boy seated himself opposite him. To his left sat an old teddy bear, to his right a plastic T-Rex. One chair remained empty.

The little boy clumsily bashed a toy teapot against Spy's fist.

"One for you!"

"Gee. Thanks."

"One for Paddy Bear, one for Jaws, one for Mrs. Griffin, and one for me!" The boy sipped his imaginary tea, then looked at Sniper. Sniper reluctantly made a sucking noise.

"Mm. Plastic-flavoured air. Love it."

"What do you think, Paddy Bear?" The toddler grabbed the bear and shook it.

" _Oh, yes, it's very nice, thank you!_ And you, Mrs. Griffin? ... I'm sorry, I can't hear you, Jaws?" He looked at Sniper again. Sniper took the T-Rex and moved it around, while reflecting philosophically on exactly what had led to this moment in his life.

" _It's great, kid, I've never tasted tea like this in my life!_ " Which was true, at least.

"Biscuits!" Announced the boy and started passing the empty plate around. Sniper shot a glance around the room. No danger signs yet.

Spoke too soon. A small group of the brats, including yesterday's nappy escapee, were stealthily making their way towards him, apparently with the intent of engaging in stealthy guerilla warfare. Sniper very slowly reached down and detached a packet of biscuits from his trousers. The boy in front of him was still nattering away with his toys and imaginary tea. Sniper softly threw the biscuits to his attackers, and put his hand to his lips. They stopped and stared, eyes round. Then the foremost picked it up, considered and stuck his hand out. _You little thug_ , thought Sniper. He threw in some sweets as well. The toddlers picked up their bribes and scuttled away to find a dark, private corner to eat them.

Sniper sat back, feeling supremely pleased with himself. He didn't even mind when the boy made him conduct another conversation with Paddy Bear and Jaws.

But then he smelled it. Well, no day in a care centre was complete without it, he supposed. It seemed to be coming from a plump, placid girl, sitting on the carpet with dull eyes.

"Spy," he muttered into the walkie-talkie. "Brown alert."

"Have you identified ze suspect?"

"Yep."

"Commence extraction. But do not be seen!"

"Roger. Commencing extraction."

He eased himself out of his miniscule chair, which didn't seem to want to let him go. The little boy let out a cry of outrage, stopping the Aussie in his tracks.

"I'm just... going... to... fill the teapot up again. Because I noticed that it was empty." The boy sat upright in his chair. With the expression of a teacher who has to half-heartedly let a student out to do some necessary task, he nodded.

Sniper ambled towards the target, whistling. He took a vaguely circular route, hoping to be able to approach from behind. He thought he was doing very well until –

"TOOOOOOREEEEEEE!"

She was holding that bloody picture book and she looked like she meant business.

"I heard that," said Spy over the radio. "Any chances of escape?"

"Minimal."

"Engage Tory protocol."

"I was getting to that, thanks." Sniper sucked in a huge breath, until he thought his ribs would crack. Then he snatched the book.

"Once upon a time there were three billy goats called Gruff on day they set off in search of some sweet green grass very soon they came to a river and across the river was the finest grass any of them had ever seennowtherewasawoddenbridgeovertheriverandunderthisbridgelivedaveryfierceand

uglytrolleverytimeheheardfootsteps... " He kept going until the very end of the book, his voice becoming a thin squeaky thread and his face turning steadily red, then shoved it back into the hands of the girl, and heaved for breath. She was standing there, looking stunned. Sniper swiftly made his escape while she was still reeling.

He ambushed the benappied girl and carried her to the nappy-changing station. She offered no resistance, looking at him with her big doleful eyes.

"Objective secured."

"Prepare to execute nappy-changing protocol." Spy couldn't believe what he was saying. He talked Sniper through the process, barking orders over the walkie-talkie. Sniper muddled his way through, breathing through his mouth. When he was done, he wasn't exactly feeling happy, but at least he was sure that he had put it on the right way up. He was making progress.

As he walked back to the tea-table, he felt a tap on his knee. The gang of kids who had planned to attack him earlier were back. They held their hands out.

"Oh, come on. You've had enough," whispered Sniper. They raised their eyebrows, and, in unison, prepared to jump on him.

"All right all right all right." Sniper peeled a packet of cakes from his shoulder. They grabbed it and ran away again. Sniper squeezed himself into the tiny chair again. The little boy immediately started making nonsensical conversation with him, the toys and the empty chair. He did quite well considering he was the only one speaking.

* * *

Medic walked to the rec room and paused at the door apprehensively. Most of the other mercs were inside, mooching about. The doctor steeled himself and coughed. This was met with immediate lack of attention. He coughed again and was graced by a flying slipper thrown his way by an irritable Scout, who was intent on the match. This prodded him into squaring his shoulders and giving his gruffest, most authoritative cough yet, swiftly followed by a raucous coughing fit as his throat tried to wrestle some moisture out of itself.

"Aw for – _what?!_ " Scout looked around, saw the scowling red-faced Medic standing by the door, saw the slipper at the feet of aforementioned Medic, and realised that he was going to pay for this later. Painfully.

"Oh. Shit. Sorry man, I thought you were, uh, not you. Anyway, what is it?" Medic took a deep breath. He would have to break this slowly, in stages, handle his words with delicacy and care, gently ease his team-mates into the implications of what he was about to reveal.

"I'm not one hundred per cent sure, but I sink I might have accidentally turned Soldier into gingerbread," he blurted. Engineer choked on his beer.

* * *

At four o'clock, Sniper thought he was doing surprisingly well. He had managed to not be mobbed, had averted all crises before they could become serious and he even thought he was getting the hang of this nappy-changing bsuiness. The biscuit-exorting team came to visit at regular intervals. Sniper paid them off discreetly: if the other kids noticed they'd all want some too.

Here they came again: he started to surreptitiously peel a can of cookies off his shoulder. He pulled away the tape – and the can slipped from his fingers. It hit the floor with a loud metallic _clang_.

In unison, twenty-odd small heads turned to look. They saw the biscuits. They saw the man next to the biscuits. An identical thought hit twenty-odd small brains at once.

 _Snack time._

At once twenty mouths started shouting and twenty pairs of legs started toddling towards him as fast as they could. Sniper's face made an impressive shift from tanned to gohst-like in under three seconds, an impressive feat for anyone to achieve. He started unzipping food from his clothes so fast his hands were a blur.

"What's going on?" Asked Spy.

"Full-scale attack! Engaging the enemy!" Sniper chucked packets of food at the oncoming army at a rate Sascha would have been proud of. The first wave stopped to pick them up, but the second wave barrelled past and kept coming. Sniper danced backwards, frantically pulling and ripping at the tape, pelting the army with sweets and biscuits. This stopped the second wave, but by that time the first one had got back up. Sniper desperately searched for more food, but found that he had none left. A cold ball bloomed in his gut.

"Spy. I'm out of ammo."

"Get to the fridge and reload! They must have restocked since yesterday!" Sniper saw the fridge at the other end of the room. It wasn't very far away. It's just that the the space between him and it was densely packed with hungry toddlers..

Sniper thought for a second. Then he slashed a doll from his left knee and threw it.

"Diversion!" He shouted. The doll flopped to the floor. The toddlers looked at it. They weren't impressed.

"Erm," said Sniper. All right. Plan B.

He pointed to the toddlers who'd been blackmailing food from him all day.

"I saw them hiding food earlier!" Their outraged faces vanished behind a surge of angry co-toddlers. Sniper legged it, one hand clutching his hat to his head. He'd have time to feel ashamed later.

Some squeals and giggles behind him told Sniper that he was still being followed. He threw himself at the fridge like a drowning man at a lifebuoy. He wrenched the door open and scraped all the snacks out, and showered them all over the approaching horde. When the fridge was empty and his attackers stopped, he slid to the floor with a sense of déjà-vu.

"My name is Chomper," said a tiny voice at his side.

Speaking of which. Sniper turned. The gaping jaws were open, ready to close on his arm.

"Hello again, Chomper," said Sniper, and stuffed the mouth with cake.

The clock struck five. Sniper breathed out. Okay. Okay. He'd survived another day.

The radio at his belt fizzed and spat into life. In the six-year-old playroom, Spy licked his lips. He waited for the perfect moment to drop his line, the line he'd been rehearsing all afternoon.

"Congratulations, Bushman. You have officially conducted a military operation to fend off a dozen infants."

* * *

Spy cut off the radio and smiled with great satisfaction. Behind him, the door opened, and a tall woman walked in. She didn't look happy.

"Excuse me," she said, "but is it true that my Timmy watched cartoons all day yesterday?" Spy's mouth opened, but nothing came out. One of the children nudged the kid sitting next to him.

"Called it," it whispered. The second child sulkily paid up ten bucks.

* * *

Sniper silently cut the engine. He was alone in the van: the coat was busy creating a noxious unbreathable atmosphere in the back, and Spy had spent the trip on the roof again, nonchalantly waving to confused drivers.

As he was getting out, he glanced upwards. Spy was unstrapping himself, still maintaining the proper upright sitting position he had grimly kept up against all odds during the drive. This done, the Frenchman dropped lightly down, landing on the balls of his feet. Sniper maintained a surly silence as they entered the base and made their way to the rec room.

* * *

"I get the bread mutation part, and the fact that you got your serums mixed up," Engineer frowned. "But gingerbread?" Medic looked sheepish.

"Um, yes. I vas eating a gingerbread man at the time and some crumbs got in the tube."

"So," rumbled Heavy. "We must find Soldier before end of ceasefire, yes?"

"People don't just ship ze body parts of exotic endagered animals across continents for giggles, you know. Zey vant money. So, before ze Administrator finds out vould be much better, ja?"

"No, only before she gets impatient," answered the Administrator over the loudspeakers.

"Oh."

They were interrupted as Spy and Sniper returned. Sniper was looking awkward, and a faint smell of onions hung around him.

Spy stared at the Sniper. Sniper said nothing.

Spy stared some more. Sniper said nothing.

Spy looked like he was trying to force lasers out of his eyes. Sniper said nothing.

Engineer began to wonder if Spy had quietly crashed inside and would need rebooting. Sniper continued to emit a steady stream of non-sounds.

Spy finally surrendered to the inevitable, and blinked.

"Bushman," he grunted. Sniper crossed his arms and looked away.

"Fine," he growled gruffly. "I needed Spy's help. Happy?" Heavy, Engineer, Medic looked vaguely confused. Scout, however, smiled blissfully.

* * *

A figure walked alone in the desert. The land was cracked and barren in all directions. The sun glared mercilessly at its hunched shoulders. No other living being came to investigate. This was coyote territory, but its inhabitants had all fled in a sense of affronted decency at the smell emanating from the intruder.

The figure was vaguely humanoid, but disfigured almost beyond recognition. It was weighed down and deformed by growths of green pulsating tumours. Its skin was a festering, pullulating mass of orange furred with green mould. Here and there a scrap of red uniform was visible. A helmet was wedged onto the top half of the swollen head. A row of bulbous icing drops dotted its front, and white bars ringed its arms and legs. More gingerbread was growing with every minute, swarming over the green growths and covering them up. It looked like the unholy lovechild of the Gingerbread Man and Frankenstein, with a large dollop of the Black Plague added in for good measure.

It moved slowly, laboriously, every step accompanied with a dry crackling sound and a little shower of ground-up crums. It knew, vaguely, that it needed to get out of the sun, or it would dry up completely. It looked to the horizon and spotted a shape in the distance. The black cutout silhouette of a building.

The sight stirred dim recollections in its mind. Buildings were important for some reason. It heard the echoes of explosions, shouts, screams, cheers. Ah yes. It remembered now. Its jaw dropped open in a grotesque, lopsided grin, a black hole gouged in the gingerbread and lined with half-melted icing. " _Start fighting now!"_ resonated through its head. It raised an imaginary shovel, roared in a garbled voice and lurched into a heroic charge at the building.

A few seconds later it had to stop for a breather. The building was rather further away than it had first thought, and it seemed that gingerbread did not make good muscles. Constant heroic charging wasn't an option. It compromised and set off again in a heroic brisk walk.

 **"Saving Private Haircut" will be concluded in the next chapter. Which hopefully will take less time to write than this one did. A lot, lot less time.**


	9. Author's note

**Author's note**

 **Just a quick note to say that I'm still working on the last part of "Saving Private Haircut", but as you've probably noticed, it's taking a while. Huge thanks to everyone who favourited/followed, I really appreciate it, as well as the fact that some of you are willing to stick around despite my ridiculously long absences. So as not to turn up completely empty-handed, here's something I wrote a while ago: it's a prose-ification of a part of the comic "Ring of Fired,", available on the TF2 website.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own TF2. The story, characters and dialogue all come from the comic.**

Light seeped into the sky. In the distance, a cockerel crowed. The grizzled hero of the American army climbed up the hill, his boots stamping the soft, moist earth. He reached a fence and surveyed the battleground, hoovering the cool morning air in through majestically flared nostrils. He opened his mouth wide and yelled his lungs concave.

"COMPANYYYYYYY... HALT! Listen up, men!"

The heroic veteran turned to face his troops – a group of puffed old ladies. Soldier's helmet bounced on his head as he animatedly began to drill some proper American pride into his army.

"Behind me! Behind those two cows! THREE HUNDRED BRAVE MEN died defending Fort Stanwix from the British!" The old ladies peered.

"I don't see a fort..." Quavered one. Soldier's jaw dropped in outrage.

"What?! If it was not for these men, you would all be speaking English right now!" His army remained unimpressed. " _British_ English!" Insisted Soldier, shuddering at the mere thought of such a terrible fate. "These men puked blood for your freedom! And by God, you blind old ladies will see their fort!" The ladies bristled at this. They were quite sure that they were not blind and that there wasn't a fort, and that anyway even if there had been a fort they didn't want to see it, thank you very much. Soldier and his reluctant company faced off against each other, glowering. Soldier found that he had the disadvantage there, because he had to glower into six different pairs of eyes at once through a helmet. He wasn't going to let something like physical impossibility get in his way though.

The alpha female of the old lady pack opened her painted mouth and glared at him over her spectacles.

"Mister Doe, your brochure promised us a tour of celebrities' homes." Soldier stepped up to her and propped his helmet up with a finger. Glaring suddenly became much easier, he noticed to his surprise.

"Sister, your are looking at their homes!" He rapped. "It will be a dark night tonight! Because all the stars are buried in this field!" Old Lady Alpha crossed her frail arms, grinding her teeth.

"Mister Doe, soldiers are _not_ celebrities." Soldier gasped. This lady had no shame. "If you're not going to show us where famous people live, Mister Doe..." A shadow crossed the lady's face and her lips contorted into an ugly look. "I demand a refund," she intoned in a voice of doom. She and Soldier stood nose-to-helmet for a few seconds.

Soldier's face cracked into a wide, sinister grin. And when Soldier grinned, it meant that someone else's grin would be taking a downwards twist.

"So you soppy old slop rags want _movie_ stars, huh? I know just the place." He snapped around on his heel, shoving his hand into his outraged opponent's face.

"Dismissed! All right, troops, listen up!" He poised his leg on a convenient rock and stabbed his hand at the sky. The sun shone over his right shoulder, bouncing off his helmet. Soldier turned up the inspiring marching tune in his head.

"We have a long march ahead of us! So we will need to travel light if we are going to run there!" Before his hapless troops could react, the great military leader was ripping through them like a whirlwind, leaving assorted scarves, handbags and jewellery in his wake. He wrestled a bag from one's purse.

"You! Drop the purse!" His victim squealed and complied. Soldier ripped the wig off one her indignant comrades and shook the offending article in her gasping face.

"You! This wig is going to get you killed!" The lady remained speechless with outrage. Disgraceful, thought Soldier. What would America do without him.

Finally, he turned to face the horizon.

"If your pacemakers have any alarms, turn them off!" He shouted. "Because we are moving out!" He held the pose for a second so that his audience could appreciate the whole heroic scope of it.

A cow mooed. His troops exchanged deadpan looks.

They jogged for many days and many nights, through hail, wind, storms and slight drizzles, never slackening the pace. Soldier led the charge tirelessly, hollering information at his followers as they zoomed past without leaving them the time to complain that they wanted to see the sights at slightly less than fifty miles an hour.

"To your left is where Dick Van Dyke held his guts in his hands after receiving a musket shot in the stomach from Ava and Zsa Zsa Gabor!"

"See those submerged logs over there? That is the Beatles! DO NOT STOP RUNNING!"

Soldier relentlessly dragged his increasingly small and out-of-breath army on their epic journey. After all, he had to give them their money's worth. Finally, they burst through the door of an expensive-looking house. Well, he did. His troops fell through the door and clawed their way across the carpet, rasping.

"We left Mildred at the last stop!" Called a distraught old lady.

"She is dead, Ethel!" Replied Soldier grimly. "Focus!"

"Whose house is this?" Panted another. Soldier's company stopped and took a good look around them. One pointed to a picture of a man shaking hands with a bear.

"That's Tom Jones!" She said in disbelief. Her friend peered at the picture and a smile dawned on her sweaty face.

"Oh my! We're actually in a real celebrity's home!" There was a collective gasp. "Thank you Mister Doe!"

"Stay frosty!" Soldier reminded his troops sharply. The remaining members of the Old Lady Squad tittered excitedly and raised battered cameras.

They squealed in delight when Tom Jones himself walked in.

"Wot's all this then?" The celebrity looked around, failing to notice Soldier creeping up behind him. A few ladies simpered or fanned themselves. But Tom Jones was not mollified by the collective swooniness.

"Who the hell are you people?" He demanded. "What are you doing in me bloody home?" No one had time to answer, as Soldier jumped up behind them and, with a triumphant "Huttah!", twisted his neck into a pretzel.

Tom Jones' body clattered to the floor. There was a horrified silence.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod..." squeaked one of the old ladies, while another pounded the button on her camera as if possessed by Woody Woodpecker.

A withered voice called down the stairs.

"Tom? I heard a cracking noise!" Bunny-slippered feet descended with soft thumps. The hem of a long black robe came into view.

"Are you cracking some popcorn? Because I already made some!" The waxy, mummy-like face of Merasmus appeared and gazed at the scene, the tasselled end of his black nightcap dangling over his ear. His glowing yellow eyes widened as they saw Soldier, and his bowl of popcorn slipped from his hands.

"You."

Soldier grinned cheekily.

"Hello, Merasmus!" He blared. The wizard opened his mouth, but his throat seized up with sheer rage and he choked. Truncated syllables tumbled out of his mouth.

"Why – you -" His voice grew shrill. "Why can't I ever be _rid_ of you? I - I'm calling the police!" Soldier stepped in front of him and stood with his hands on his hips, still wearing a proud grin.

"Go ahead, Merasmus," he trumpeted. "They'll probably give me a medal!" His smile grew wider. "I am fully within my legal rights as your old roommate to kill your stupid new roommate! I am living in a _box_ , Merasmus!" Merasmus stuttered.

"But – but you evicted me from my own castle! Why don't you live there?" Soldier puffed his chest out.

"I lost my mercenary job! I was sad! You were happy! So I killed Tom Jones!" He explained, as if teaching kids that two and two made four. Merasmus started shaking. Stiffly, he crossed the room to the door and clutched the handle, clenching his bony fist and gritting his teeth. The wizard's words seethed with pure hate.

"Soldier, I have lived for four thousand years..." he spat, "and agreeing to be your roommate is my _only_ regret! Finally you are going to get what you so richly deserve. Officers! You may enter!" Soldier's Old Lady Squad watched with wide eyes, murmuring to each other.

"Keep staying frosty, girls," Soldier muttered to them.

A police officer walked in, wearing a uniform that looked four sizes too big. He had glasses, a brown moustache that contrasted oddly with his shiny black bun. He also seemed to be trying very hard to not look like Miss Pauling, which, to Soldier's keen military senses, was mildly suspicious. He gripped his belt and tried to look austere.

"Um, all right, everybody calm down! Ma'am, is this your Tom Jones' corpse?" His voice sounded odd, forced. Almost like a woman trying to fake a deep man's voice, actually. But this detail flew right over the enraged wizard's head. Merasmus pointed at Soldier savagely.

"Indeed, officer! And that man is the cause of it!" He screeched. Not-Miss-Pauling advanced sternly on the grinning Soldier.

"I don't know how things work out in the Badlands, son, but around here we don't take too kindly to murdering Tom Jones!" He snapped handcuffs around Soldier's wrists, with difficulty as the latter was trying to wave cheerily.

"Hello, Miss Paul -"

"Quiet, prisoner!" The policeman's truncheon thunked down on the veteran's helmet, silencing him. Not Pauling put a hand on Soldier's shoulder and steered him towards the door, talking to Merasmus as they went.

"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to check Tom Jones' pulse." She pointed at the corpse. "Um, make sure you really get your fingers all over his neck."

"At once, officer!" Merasmus shook his fists. Finally, Soldier was getting his comeuppance. He could hardly believe it was happening.

The officer shoved Soldier out of the door.

"And you! You're going to get the chair, scum!" She leaned closer and hissed in his ear.

" _Keep moving, keep moviiiing..._ " The mercenary was bundled out of the door with a cheery "Bye, Merasmus!"

Miss Pauling marched Soldier to a nearby police car, pausing only to stuff the foot that was poking out of the boot back inside, while Soldier climbed into the back seat. Miss Pauling soon took her place at the front and slammed the door shut with a wide smile.

Soldier gripped her backrest and, with some effort, tried to look solemn.

"Officer Miss Pauling," he started gravely. "what I am about to say will shock you: I was framed." Miss Pauling laughed.

"You're not going to jail, Soldier. I'm getting the team back together." She turned to face him, holding her policeman's cap between her teeth while she peeled off her blue jacket, revealing a mauve dress underneath.

"Actually, you're the first one I've managed to track down. You haven't heard from any of the others, have you?" Soldier gazed out of the window and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"I've seen Scout. He helped me move out of my castle into a box. Then I accidentally broke both his arms." Soldier darted Miss Pauling a quick glance, but she didn't seem to mind, so he continued.

"So if the last time I saw him is any indication, he's probably at the crying hospital with mascara running down his stupid fa -" Miss Pauling sighed.

"Right. Well, before we go to the crying hospital, I've got a couple leads we should check out. Have you ever heard of Frontier Engineering?"

In the nearby city rose a tall building, jutting up at the sky and crowned with the words "FRONTIER ENGINEERING" in huge capitals.

Right at the top of this building, underneath the roof, was a conference room. It was light, airy, spacious. A soft, plain carpet the colour of milk coffee. Pot plants in white ceramic bowls sat in the corners. The whole city could be seen through the huge windows that replaced the walls, safety clearly not being top priority in the architect's mind as he designed it. The vibrant blue sky stretched overhead, scudded by fluffy white clouds.

A long, smooth wooden table occupied the middle of the room, surrounded by smart red chairs. In them sat managers wearing professional, light-grey clothes. Their hair was brushed and shiny, and stayed in their carefully arranged hairstyles with Lego-like tenacity, their moustaches fanatically pruned and nurtured. The men wore chunky, heavy watches, shining silver on their wrists, and the women had tasteful jewellery that complimented their neat dresses. A lot of them wore glasses, the light glazing the spotless lenses. The managers were turned, politely watching the end of the table, at the end of which loomed a large red armchair. The occupant of this armchair was hidden behind a copy of _The Gravel Street Journal_. The front page of the newspaper was shouting "TOM JONES MURDERED! Hysterical witch woman held for questioning" in bold black letters. Underneath it was a picture of a raving, mummy-like man with glowing eyes, wearing a black nightgown and tasselled night cap, shaking his manacles at the camera. The back page contained only a few adds for Mann Co. As for the person holding the newspaper, their only visible parts were the yellow tips of their gloved fingers, clasping the paper.

Beside them, a blonde, middle-aged woman wearing a red scarf and golden earrings addressed the room with a big smile on her face.

"Congratulations, everyone! We've just had our best quarter ever! Ladies and gentlemen," her chest wobbled with emotion, "we're all millionaires!" She cried. The employees cheered and clapped. There were cries of "Hear, hear!" and "I say!" The lady beamed. She clasped her hands before her.

"And of course," the woman turned to acknowledge the paper-hidden individual in the armchair, "it's all due to the inspiring leadership of our new CEO." The employees clapped appreciatively. "Would you like to say a few words, sir?" A rapt silence ensued. All turned to watch their CEO.

The lady's voice burbled in the CEO's ears. He lowered his paper and looked down the table with a sigh. The stick men were all smiling at him. Behind them, through the glass, pixelated shapes were piled up into random shapes.

Grey. Lifeless. Dull.

When did the world become so dreary? The endless grey had settled everywhere like dandruff, muffling all the colours. Running a company was fun at first, but that had faded to a monotonous slog almost without him realising. How long had the grey been there? He honestly couldn't remember. He could remember the time before the grey, though, the one with the colours. Oh, that had been wonderful. The flames leaping up and dancing around him, their warmth shining on his skin through his thick suit. And then, sometimes, colours would bloom in the fire's roots and engulf him. Bright, swirling, lively colours, that smelt of burnt sugar. Green, pink, blue, yellow, white, purple, forming a brilliant candyland in which unicorns and little blue cherubs played with him and he pranced around making magical flowers grow.

And there was those other people, too. The ones that didn't come into the colours. They were red, usually, and their voices sounded better than just the burbling and chirping those stick men made, thought Pyro viciously. He had especially liked the one with the yellow hat, even though he used to catch Pyro by the collar just when he was about to charge into battle and make him watch some piles of clattering, rattling metal. Sentries. Dispensers. Teleporters. Engineer. The battles. Where did they all go? It all seemed very vague.

"Sirp?" Warbled one of the smiling stick men. "Arboo feeling okay?" Pyro reluctantly dragged himself back to reality(his version of). Then his eye caught something and he stopped breathing. A glimmer. A small spot of colour. His heart skipped a beat. Hardly daring to believe it, he turned his head slightly to check that its wasn't a trick of the light or a reflection. It wasn't. Little alarm signs appeared above the stick men's heads.

Colours! His old vibrant rainbow colours! Suddenly he was up close, reaching out with his gloved hand. The colours splashed over the grey, swept towards him in streamers of delicious orange and purple, shedding sparkles and butterflies and little unicorns. He had almost forgotten what they looked like.

The CEO of Frontier Engineering pressed his gas mask against the window like a small child, immobile. Behind him, his second-in-command pressed her hand to her mouth.

"Oh my God..."

Two maniacs on the building opposite had climbed onto the ledge lowered for window cleaners, and had somehow started a huge bonfire inside the building. Now they were waving cheerily, as they steadily poured more petrol into the blaze.

The horrified manager wondered if it was some sort of extreme publicity stunt. Or a taunt from their rival, Frontline Machineering? Or perhaps just a couple of crazy arsonists. Some sort of cult, more likely. Oh, good. That would mean a huge publicity boost when they called the police.

"Hello, Pyro!" Yelled one of the arsonists, a weirdo with a helmet, waving. Beside him a young woman called, as if trying to lure a cat back into her garden.

"I think he sees us! Pyro! Fires! Remember fires?" She cooed.

Pyro beamed. Remember fires! How could he forget fires?

He knew what he wanted. It was calling him, clawing in his chest. He forgot the company, his CEO-ship, his stick-men managers. They didn't exist any more.

He dashed down the corridor, leaving fluttering papers and stunned stares behind. He spread his arms. He felt as if he was flying. Goodbye greyness. The colours and the fire had come back for him, and by God was he going to join them.


End file.
